
Class 



V '^ 



i- ^- — ■ 



m^xY^ 

COPVHJGHT DEPOSm 



?? 



LINCOLN 



f: 










Statue hy Auj;u.-,Luj Si. Cjau.lcn.-,, Lincoln Park, Chicago 



LINCOLN 



An Account of His Personal Life, Especially 

of Its Springs of Action as Revealed and 

Deepened by the Ordeal of War 



BY 
NATHANIEL WRIGHT STEPHENSON 

Author of 
Abraham Lincoln and the Union, Etc. 



WJ 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



/. 



^^%z 



Copyright, 1922 
By The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



Printed in the United States of America 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



NOV 20 'i'^ 

S Cl A G & 2 G 



To 

Allen Johnson 



Authority for all important statements of facts in the 
follozving pages may he found in the notes; the condensed 
references are expanded in the hihliography. A fezv con- 
troversial matters are discussed in the notes. 

I am very grateful to Mr. William Roscoe Thayer for 
enabling me to use the manuscript diary of John Hay. Miss 
Helen Nicolay has graciously confirmed some of the implica- 
tions of the official biography. Lincoln's only surviving 
secretary, Colonel W. 0. Stoddard, has given considerate 
aid. The curious incident of Lincoln as council in an] 
action to recover slaves zvas mentioned to me by Professor 
Henry Johnson, through whose good offices it zvas con- 
firmed and amplified by Judge John H. Marshall. Mr. 
Henry W. Raymond has been very tolerant of a stranger's 
inquiries zmth regard to his distinguished father. A futile 
attempt to discover documentary remains of the Republican 
National Committee of 1864 has made it possible, through 
the courtesy of Mr. Clarence B. Miller, at least to assert 
that there is nothing of importance in possession of the 
present Committee. A search for nezv light on Chandler 
drew forth generous assistance from Professor Ulrich B. 
Phillips, Mr. Floyd B. Strcctcr and Mr. G. B. Krum. 
The latter caused to be examined, for this particular pur- 
pose, the Blair manuscripts in the Burton Historical Col- 
lection. Much illumination arose out of a systematic re- 
survey of the Congressional Globe, for the zvar period, in 
which I had the stimulating companionship of Professor 
John L. Hill, reinforced by many conversations zvith Pro- 
fessor Dixon Ryan Fox and Professor David Saznlle 
Muzzey. At the heart of the matter is the resolute criticism 



of Mrs. Stephenson and of a long enduring friend, President 
Harrison Randolph. 

The temper of the historical fraternity is such that any 
worker in any field is always under a host of incidental 
obligations. There is especial propriety in my acknozvledg- 
ing the kindness of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, Pro- 
fessor James A. Woodhurn, Professor Herman V. Ames, 
Professor St. George L. Sioussat and Professor Allen 
Johnson. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEB PAGE 

FOUNDATIONS 

I The Child of the Forest i 

II The Mysterious Youth li 

III A Village Leader 19 

IV Revelations 29 

V Prosperity 43 

VI Unsatisfying Recognition .... 52 

PROMISES 

VII The Second Start 61 

VIII A Return to Politics 72 

IX The Literary Statesman 82 

X The Dark Horse 91 

XI Secession 98 

XII The Crisis 109 

XIII Eclipse 116 

CONFUSIONS 

XIV The Strange New Man 127 

XV President and Premier 140 

XVI "On to Richmond!" 168 

XVII Defining the Issue 176 

XVIII The Jacobin Club 188 

XIX The Jacobins Become Inquisitors . . 200 

XX Is Congress the President's Master? , 212 

XXI The Struggle to Control the Army . 221 

XXII Lincoln Emerges 244 



COIS^TE'NTS— Continued 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



AUDACITIES 

XXIII The Mystical Statesman 261 

XXIV Gambling in Generals 269 

XXV A War behind the Scenes .... 280 

XXVI The Dictator, the Marplot, and the 

Little Men 297 

XXVII The Tribune of the People .... 312 

XXVIII Apparent Ascendency 330 

XXIX Catastrophe 336 

XXX The President versus the Vindictives 348 



VICTORY 

XXXI A Menacing Pause .... 

XXXII The August Conspiracy . . 

XXXIII The Rally to the President 

XXXIV "Father Abraham" .... 
XXXV The Master of the Moment . 

XXXVI Preparing a Different War . 

XXXVII Fate Interposes 



355 
369 
379 
389 

395 
407 

415 



Bibliography « » 425 

Notes .,».,> 433 

Index 463 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Statue by Augustus St. Gaudens, 

Lincoln Park, Chicago .... Frontispiece 
Earliest Portrait of Lincoln, 

Age Thirty-Nine Facing page 40 

Mary Todd Lincoln " " 130 

Lincoln and Tad " "210 

Review of the Army of the Potomac, 

Falmouth, Va., April, 1863 • . . " " 294 

The Last Phase of Lincoln . . . . " " 384 



LINCOLN 



THE CHILD OF THE FOREST 

Of FIRST importance in the making of the American 
people is that great forest which once extended its mysteri- 
ous labyrinth from tide-water to the prairies. When the 
earliest colonists entered warily its sea-worn edges a portion 
of the European race came again under a spell it had for- 
gotten centuries before, the spell of that untamed nature 
which created primitive man. All the dim memories that 
lay deep in subconsciousness ; all the vague shadows hover- 
ing at the back of the civilized mind; the sense of encom- 
passing natural power, the need to struggle single-handed 
against it; the danger lurking in the darkness of the for- 
est; the brilliant treachery of the forest sunshine glinted 
through leafy secrecies; the strange voices in its illimitable 
murmur; the ghostly shimmer of its glades at night; the 
lovely beauty of the great gold moon; all the thousand 
wondering dreams that evolved the elder gods, Pan, Cybele, 
Thor; all this waked again in the soul of the Anglo-Saxon 
penetrating the great forest. And it was intensified by the 
way he came, — singly, or with but wife and child, or at 
best in very small company, a mere handful. And the 
surrounding presences were not only of the spiritual world. 

1 



i LINCOLN 

Human enemies who were soon as well armed as he. quicker 
of foot and eye; more perfectly noiseless in their tread 
even than the wild beasts of the shadowy coverts, the ruth- 
less Indians whom he came to expel, these invisible pres- 
ences were watching him, in a fierce silence he knew not 
whence. Like as not the first signs of that menace which 
was everywhere would be the hiss of the Indian arrow, or 
the crack of the Indian rifle, and sharp and sudden death. 

Under these conditions he learned much and forgot 
much. His deadly need made him both more and less in- 
dividual than he had been, released him from the dictation 
of his fellows in daily life while it enforced relentlessly a 
uniform method of self-preservation. Thougfi the unseen 
world became more and more real, the understanding of 
it faded. It became chiefly a matter of emotional percep- 
tion, scarcely at all a matter of philosophy. The morals 
of the forest Americans were those of audacious, visionary 
beings loosely bound together by a comradeship in peril. 
Courage, cautiousness, swiftness, endurance, faithfulness, 
secrecy, — these were the forest virtues. Dreaming, com- 
panionship, humor, — these w^ere the forest luxuries. 

From the first, all sorts and conditions were ensnared 
by that silent land, where the trails they followed, their 
rifles in their hands, had been trodden hard generation 
after generation by the feet of the Indian warriors. The 
best and the worst of England went into that illimitable 
resolvent, lost themselves, found themselves, and issued 
from its shadows, or their children did, changed both for 
good and ill, Americans. Meanwhile the great forest, dur- 
ing two hundred years, was slov/ly vanishing. This parent 
of a new people gave its life to its offspring and passed 
away. In the early nineteenth century It had withered 



THE CHILD OF THE FOREST 3 

backward far from the coast; had lost its identity all along 
the north end of the eastern mountains; had frayed out 
toward the sunset into lingering tentacles, into broken 
minor forests, into shreds and patches. 

Curiously, by a queer sort of natural selection, its people 
had congregated into little communities not all of one 
pattern. There were places as early as the beginning of 
the century where distinction had appeared. At other places 
life was as rude and rough as could be imagined. There 
were innumerable farms that were still mere "clearings," 
walled by the forest. But there were other regions where 
for many a mile the timber had been hewn away, had 
given place to a ragged continuity of farmland. In such 
regions — especially if the poorer elements of the forest, 
spiritually speaking, had drifted thither — the straggling vil- 
lages which had appeared were but groups of log cabins 
huddled along a few neglected lanes. In central Kentucky, 
a poor new^ village was Elizabethtown, unkempt, chok- 
ingly dusty in the dry w^eather, with muddy streams instead 
of streets during the rains, a stench of pig-sties at the back 
of its cabins, but even^-^vhere looking outward glimpses of 
a lovely meadow land. 

At Elizabethtown in 1806 lived Joseph Hanks, a car- 
penter, also his niece Nancy Hanks. Poor people they 
were, of the sort that had been sucked into the forest in 
their weakness, or had been pushed into it by a social pres- 
sure they could not resist ; not the sort that had grimly 
adventured its perils or gaily courted its lure. Their source 
was Virginia. They were of a thriftless, unstable class; 
that vagrant peasantry which had drifted westward to avoid 
competition wnth slave labor. The niece, Nancy, has been 
reputed illegitimate. And though tradition derives her 



4 LINCOLN 

from the predatory amour of an aristocrat, there is nothing 
to sustain the tale except her own appearance. She had a 
bearing, a cast of feature, a tone, that seemed to hint at 
higher social origins than those of her Hanks relatives. 
She had a little schooling; was of a pious and emotional 
turn of mind; enjoyed those amazing "revivals" which now 
and then gave an outlet to the pent-up religiosity of the 
village; and she was almost handsome.^ 

History has preserved no clue why this girl who was 
rather the best of her sort chose to marry an illiterate 
apprentice of her uncle's, Thomas Lincoln, whose name in 
the forest was spelled "Linkhorn." He was a shiftless 
fellow, never succeeding at anything, who could neither read 
nor write. At the time of his birth, twenty-eight years 
before, his parents — drifting, roaming people, struggling 
with poverty — were dwellers in the Virginia mountains. As 
a mere lad, he had shot an Indian — one of the few positive 
acts attributed to him — and his father had been killed by 
Indians. There w^as a "vague tradition" that his grand- 
father had been a Pennsylvania Quaker who had wandered 
southward through the forest mountains. The tradition 
angered him. Though he appears to have had little enough 
— at least in later years — of the fierce independence of the 
forest, he resented a Quaker ancestry as an insult. He had 
no suspicion that in after years the zeal of genealogists 
would track his descent until they had linked him with a 
lost member of a distinguished Puritan family, a certain 
Mordecai Lincoln who removed to New Jersey, whose 
descendants became wanderers of the forest and sank 
speedily to the bottom of the social scale, retaining not the 
slightest memory of their New England origin.^ 

Even in the worst of the forest villages, few couples 



THE CHILD OF THE FOREST 5 

started married life in less auspicious circumstances than 
did Nancy and Thomas. Their home in one of the alleys 
of Elizabethtown was a shanty fourteen feet square.^ 
Very soon after marriage, shiftless Thomas gave up car- 
pentering and took to farming. Land could be had almost 
anywhere for almost nothing those days, and Thomas got 
a farm on credit near where now stands Hodgenville. To- 
day, it is a famous place, for there, February 12, 1809, 
Abraham Lincoln, second child, but first son of Nancy and 
Thomas, was bom.** 

During most of eight years, Abraham lived in Kentucky. 
His father, always adrift in heart, tried two farms before 
abandoning Kentucky altogether. A shadowy figure, this 
Thomas; the few memories of him suggest a superstitious 
nature in a superstitious community. He used to see visions 
in the forest. Once, it is said, he came home, all excite- 
ment, to tell his wife he had seen a giant riding on a lion, 
tearing up trees by the roots; and thereupon, he took to 
his bed and kept it for several days. 

His son Abraham told this story of the giant on the 
lion to a playmate of his, and the two boys gravely dis- 
cussed the existence of ghosts. Abraham thought his father 
"didn't exactly believe in them," and seems to have been 
in about the same state of mind himself. He was quite 
sure he w^as "not much" afraid of the dark. This was due 
chiefly to the simple wisdom of a good woman, a neigh- 
bor, who had taught him to think of the night as a great 
room that God had darkened even as his friend darkened 
a room in her house by hanging something over the win- 
dow. ^ 

The eight years of his childhood in Kentucky had few 
incidents. A hard, patient, uncomplaining life both for oM 



6 LINCOLN 

and young. The men found their one deep joy in the hunt. 
In lesser degree, they enjoyed the revivals which gave to 
the women their one escape out of themselves. A strange, 
almost terrible recovery of the primitive, were those re- 
ligious furies of the days before the great forest had dis- 
appeared. What other figures in our history are quite so 
remarkable as the itinerant frontier priests, the circuit- 
riders as they are now called, who lived as Elijah did, 
whose temper was very much the temper of Elijah, in whose 
exalted narrowness of devotion, all that was stern, dark, 
foreboding — the very brood of the forest's innermost heart 
— had found a voice. Their religion was ecstasy in home- 
spun, a glory of violent singing, the release of a frantic 
emotion, formless but immeasurable, which at all other 
times, in the severity of the forest routine, gave no sign 
of its existence. 

A visitor remembered long afterward a handsome young 
woman who he thought was Nancy Hanks, singing wildly, 
whirling about as may once have done the ecstatic women 
of the woods of Thrace, making her way among equally 
passionate worshipers, to the foot of the rude altar, and 
there casting herself into the arms of the man she was to 
marry.6 So did thousands of forest women in those sea- 
sons when their communion with a mystic loneliness was 
confessed, when they gave tongue as simply as wild crea- 
tures to the nameless stirrings and promptings of that secret 
woodland where Pan was still the lord. And the day fol- 
lowing the revival, they were again the silent, expressionless, 
much enduring, long-suffering forest wives, mothers of 
many children, toilers of the cabins, who cooked and swept 
and carried fuel by sunlight, and by firelight sewed and 
spun. 



THE CHILD OF THE FOREST 7 

It can easily be understood how these women, as a rule, 
exerted little influence on their sons. Their imaginative 
side was too deeply hidden, the nature of their pleasures 
too secret, too mysterious. Male youth, following its ob- 
vious pleasure, went with the men to the hunt. The women 
remained outsiders. The boy who chose to do likewise, 
was the incredible exception. In him had come to a head' 
the deepest things in the forest life: the darkly feminine 
things, its silence, its mysticism, its secretiveness, its tragic 
patience. Abraham was such a boy. It is said that he 
astounded his father by refusing to own a gun. He earned 
terrible whippings by releasing animals caught in traps. 
Though he had in fullest measure the forest passion for 
listening to stories, the ever-popular tales of Indian warfare 
disgusted him. But let the tale take on any glint of the 
mystery of the human soul — as of Robinson Crusoe alone 
on his island, or of the lordliness of action, as in Columbus 
or Washington — and he was quick with interest. The 
stories of talking animals out of ^sop fascinated him. 

In this thrilled curiosity about the animals was the side 
of him least intelligible to men like his father. It lives in 
many anecdotes: of his friendship with a poor dog he had 
which he called "Honey"; of pursuing a snake through 
difficult thickets to prevent its swallowing a frog; of loiter- 
ing on errands at the risk of whippings to watch the squir- 
rels in the tree-tops; of the crowning offense of his child- 
hood, which earned him a mighty beating, the saving of 
a fawn's life by scaring it off just as a hunter's gun was 
leveled. And by way of comment on all this, there is the 
remark preserved in the memory of another boy to whom 
at the time it appeared most singular, "God might think as 
much of that little fawn as of some people." Of him as 



8 LINCOLN 

of another gentle soul it might have been said that all the 
animals were his brothers and sisters." 

One might easily imagine this peculiar boy who chose to 
remain at home while the men went out to slay, as the mere 
translation into masculinity of his mother, and of her 
mothers, of all the converging processions of forest women, 
who had passed from one to another the secret of their 
mysticism, coloring it many ways in the dark vessels of 
their suppressed lives, till it reached at last their concluding 
child. But this would only in part explain him. Their 
mysticism, as after-time was to show, he had undoubtedly 
inherited. So, too, from them, it may be, came another 
characteristic — that instinct to endure, to wait, to abide the 
issue of circumstance, which in the days of his power made 
him to the politicians as unintelligible as once he had been 
to the forest huntsmen. Nevertheless, the most distinctive 
part of those primitive women, the sealed, passionateness of 
their spirits, he never from childhood to the end revealed. 
In the grown man appeared a quietude, a sort of tranced 
calm, that was appalling. From what part of his heredity 
did this derive? Was it the male gift of the forest? Did 
progenitors worthier than Thomas somehow cast through 
him to his alien son that peace they had found in the utter 
heart of danger, that apparent selflessness which is born of 
being ever unfailingly on guard? 

It is plain that from the first he was a natural stoic, 
taking his whippings, of which there appear to have been 
plenty, in silence, without anger. It was all in the day's 
round. Whippings, like other things, came and went. 
What did It matter ? And the daily round, though monot- 
onous, had even for the child a complement of labor. 
Especially there was much patient journeying back and forth 



THE CHILD OF THE FOREST 9 

with meal bags between his father's cabin and the local 
mill. There was a little schooling, very little, partly from 
Nancy Lincoln, partly from another good woman, the 
miller's kind old mother, partly at the crudest of wayside 
schools maintained very briefly by a w^andering teacher who 
soon wandered on; but out of this schooling very little 
result beyond the mastery of the A B C.^ And even at 
this age, a pathetic eagerness to learn, to invade the wonder 
of the printed book! Also a marked keenness of observa- 
tion. He observed things which his elders overlooked. He 
had a better sense of direction, as when he corrected his 
father and others who were taking the wrong short-cut to 
a burning house. Cool, unexcitable, he was capable of pres- 
ence of mind. Once at night when the door of the cabin 
was suddenly thrown open and a monster appeared on the 
threshold, a spectral thing in the darkness, furry, with the 
head of an ox, Thomas Lincoln shrank back aghast; little 
Abraham, quicker-sighted and quicker-witted, slipped be- 
hind the creature, pulled at its furry mantle, and revealed a 
forest Diana, a bold girl who amused herself playing demon 
among the shadows of the moon. 

Seven years passed and his eighth birthday approached. 
All this while Thomas Lincoln had somehow kept his 
family in food, but never had he money in his pocket. His 
successive farms, bought on credit, were never paid for. 
An incurable vagrant, he came at last to the psychological 
moment when he could no longer impose himself on his 
community. He must take to the road in a hazard of new 
fortune. Indiana appeared to him the land of promise. 
Most of his property — such as it was — except his car- 
penter's tools, he traded for whisky, four hundred gallons. 
Somehow he obtained a rattletrap wagon and two horses. 



lo LINCOLN 

The family appear to have been loath to go. Nancy Lin- 
coln had long been ailing and in low spirits, thinking much 
of what might happen to her children after her death. 
Abraham loved the country-side, and he had good friends 
in the miller and his kind old mother. But the vagrant 
Thomas would have his way. In the brilliancy of the 
Western autumn, with the ruined woods flaming scarlet and 
gold, these poor people took their last look at the cabin 
that had been their wretched shelter, and set forth into 
the world.^ 



II 



THE MYSTERIOUS YOUTH 

Vagrants, or little better than vagrants, were Thomas 
Lincoln and his family making their way to Indiana. For 
a year after they arrived they were squatters, their home 
an "open-faced camp," that is, a shanty with one wall miss- 
ing, and instead of chimney a fire built on the open side. 
In that mere pretense of a house, Nancy Lincoln and her 
children spent the winter of 1816-1817. Then Thomas re- 
sorted to his familiar practice of taking land on credit. 
The Lincolns were now part of a "settlement" of seven 
or eight families strung along a little stream known as 
Pigeon Creek. Here Thomas entered a quarter-section of 
fair land, and in the course of the next eleven years suc- 
ceeded — wonderful to relate ! — in paying down sufficient 
money to give him title to about half. 

Meanwhile, poor fading Nancy went to her place. 
Pigeon Creek was an out-of-the-way nook in the still un- 
settled West, and Nancy during the two years she lived 
there could not have enjoyed much of the consolation of 
her religion. Perhaps now and then she had ghostly coun- 
cil of some stray circuit-rider. But for her the days of the 
ecstasies had gone by; no great revival broke the seals of 
the spirit, stirred its deep waters, along Pigeon Creek. 
There was no religious service when she was laid to rest in 
a coffin made of green lumber and fashioned by her hus- 
band. Months passed, the snow lay deep, before a passing 

II 



12 LINCOLN 

circuit-rider held a burial service over her grave. Tradi- 
tion has it that the boy Abraham brought this about. Very 
likely, at ten years old, he felt that her troubled spirit could 
not have peace till this was done. Shadowy as she is, 
ghostlike across the page of history, it is plain that she was 
a reality to her son. He not only loved her but revered 
her. He believed that from her he had inherited the better 
part of his genius. Many years after her death he said, 
"God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I 
owe to her." 

Nancy was not long without a successor. Thomas Lin- 
coln, the next year, journeyed back to Kentucky and re- 
turned in triumph to Indiana, bringing as his wife, an old 
flame of his who had married, had been widowed, and was 
of a mind for further' adventures. This Sarah Bush Lin- 
coln, of less distinction than Nancy, appears to have been 
steadier-minded and stronger-willed. Even before this, 
Thomas had left the half- faced camp and moved into a 
cabin. But such a cabin ! It had neither door, nor window, 
nor floor. Sally Lincoln required her husband to make of 
it a proper house — by the standards of Pigeon Creek. She 
had brought with her as her dowry a wagon-load of furni- 
ture. These comforts together with her strong will began 
a new era of relative comfort in the Lincoln cabin. ^ 

Sally Lincoln was a kind stepmother to Abraham who 
became strongly attached to her. In the rough and nonde- 
script community of Pigeon Creek, a world of weedy farms, 
of miserable mud roads, of log farm-houses, the family 
during her regime emerged from wretchedness to a state of 
life that was at least tolerable. The sordid misery described 
by all the recorders of Lincoln's early days seems to have 
ended about his twelfth year. At least, the vagrant sugges- 



THE MYSTERIOUS YOUTH 13 

tion disappeared. Though the hfe that succeeded was void 
of luxury, though it was rough, even brutal, dominated by 
a coarse, peasant-like view of things, it was scarcely by 
peasant standards a life of hardship. There was food suffi- 
cient, if not very good; protection from wind and weather; 
fire in the winter time; steady labor; and social acceptance 
by the community of the creekside. That the labor was 
hard and long, went without saying. But as to that — as of 
the whippings in Kentucky — what else, from the peasant 
point of view, would you expect ? Abraham took it all with 
the same stoicism with which he had once taken the whip- 
pings. By the unwritten law of the creekside he was his 
father's property, and so was his labor until he came of 
age. Thomas used him as a servant or hired him out to 
other farmers. Stray recollections show us young Abra- 
ham working as a farm-hand for twenty-five cents the day, 
probably with "keep" in addition; we glimpse him slaughter- 
ing hogs skilfully at thirty-one cents a day, for this was 
"rough work." He became noted as an axman. 

In the crevices, so to speak, of his career as a farm- 
hand, Abraham got a few months of schooling, less than 
a year in all. A story that has been repeated a thousand 
times shows the raw youth by the cabin fire at night doing 
sums on the back of a wooden shovel, and shaving off its 
surface repeatedly to get a fresh page. He devoured every 
book that came his way, only a few to be sure, but generally 
great ones — the Bible, of course, and ^sop, Crusoe, Pil- 
grim's Progress, and a few histories, these last unfortu- 
nately of the poorer sort. He early displayed a bent for 
composition, scribbling verses that were very poor, and 
writing burlesque tales about his acquaintances in what 
passed for a Biblical style.^ 



14 LINCOLN 

One great experience broke the monotony of the life 
on Pigeon Creek. He made a trip to New Orleans as a 
"hand" on a flatboat. Of this trip Httle is known though 
much may be surmised. To his deeply poetic nature what 
an experience it must have been: the majesty of the vast 
river; the pageant of its immense travel; the steamers 
heavily laden; the fleets of barges; the many towns; the 
nights of stars over wide sweeps of water; the stately 
plantation houses along the banks ; the old French city with 
its crowds, its bells, the shipping, the strange faces and the 
foreign speech ; all the bewildering evidence that there were 
other worlds besides Pigeon Creek! 

What seed of new thinking was sown in his imagination 
by this Odyssey we shall never know. The obvious effect 
in the ten years of his life in Indiana was produced at 
Pigeon Creek. The "settlement" was within fifteen miles 
of the Ohio. It lay in that southerly fringe of Indiana 
which received early in the century many families of much 
the same estate, character and origin as the Lincolns, — poor 
whites of the edges of the great forest working outward 
toward the prairies. Located on good land not far from 
a great highway, the Ohio, it illustrated in its rude pros- 
perity a transformation that went on unobserved in many 
such settlements, the transformation of the wandering for- 
ester of the lower class into a peasant farmer. Its life was 
of the earth, earthly; though it retained the religious tra- 
ditions of the forest, their significance was evaporating; 
mysticism was fading into emotionalism ; the camp-meeting 
was degenerating into a picnic. The supreme social event, 
the wedding, was attended by festivities that filled twenty- 
four hours — a race of male guests in the forenoon with a 
bottle of whisky for a prize ; an Homeric dinner at midday ; 



THE MYSTERIOUS YOUTH 15 

"an afternoon of rough games and outrageous practical 
jokes; a supper and dance at night interrupted by the 
successive withdrawals of the bride and groom, attended 
by ceremonies and jests of more than Rabelaisian crude- 
ness; and a noisy dispersal next day."^ The intensities of 
the forest survived in hard drinking, in the fury of the fun- 
making, and in the hunt. The forest passion for story- 
telling had in no way decreased. 

In this atmosphere, about eighteen and nineteen, Abra- 
ham shot up suddenly from a slender boy to a huge, raw- 
boned, ungainly man, six feet four inches tall, of unusual 
muscular strength. His strength was one of the fixed con- 
ditions of his development. It delivered him from all fear 
of his fellows. He had plenty of peculiarities. He was 
ugly, awkward ; he lacked the wanton appetites of the aver- 
age sensual man. And these peculiarities without his great 
strength as his warrant might have brought him into ridicule. 
As it was, whatever his peculiarities, in a society like that 
of Pigeon Creek, the man who could beat all competitors, 
wrestling or boxing, was free from molestation. But Lin- 
coln instinctively had another aim in life than mere freedom 
to be himself. Two characteristics that were so significant 
in his childhood continued with growing vitality in his 
young manhood : his placidity and his intense sense of com- 
radeship. The latter, however, had undergone a change. 
It was no longer the comradeship of the wild creatures. 
That spurt of physical expansion, the swift rank growth 
to his tremendous stature, swept him apparently across a 
dim dividing line, out of the world of birds and beasts and 
into the world of men. He took the new world with the 
same unfailing but also unexcitable curiosity with which he 
had taken the other, the world of squirrels, flowers, fawns. 



i6 LINCOLN 

Here as there, the difference from his mother, deep 
though their similarities may have been, was sharply evi- 
dent. Had he been wholly at one with her religiously, the 
gift of telling speech which he now began to display might 
have led him into a course that would have rejoiced her 
heart, might have made him a boy preacher, and later, a 
great revivalist. His father and elder sister while on Pigeon 
Creek joined the local Baptist Church. But Abraham did 
not follow them. Nor is there a single anecdote linking 
him in any way with the fervors of camp-meeting. On the 
contrary, what little is remembered, is of a cool aloofness.* 
The inscrutability of the forest was his — what it gave to 
the stealthy, cautious men who were too intent on observing, 
too suspiciously watchful, to give vent to their feelings. 
Therefore, in Lincoln there was always a double life, outer 
and inner, the outer quietly companionable, the inner, soli- 
tary, mysterious. 

It was the outer life that assumed its first definite phase 
in the years on Pigeon Creek. During those years, Lincoln 
discovered his gift of story-telling. He also discovered 
humor. In the employment of both talents, he accepted as 
a matter of course the tone of the young ruffians among 
whom he dwelt. Very soon this powerful fellow, who 
could throw any of them in a wrestle, won the central 
position among them by a surer title, by the power to 
Jelight. And any one who knows how peasant schools of 
art arise — for that matter, all schools of art that are vital — 
knows how he did it. In this connection, his famous biog- 
raphers, Nicolay and Hay, reveal a certain externality by 
objecting that a story attributed to him is ancient. All 
stories are ancient. Not the tale, but the telling, as the 
proverb says, is the thing. In later years, Lincoln wrote 



THE MYSTERIOUS YOUTH ly 

down every good story that he heard, and filed it.'^ When 
it reappeared it had become his own. Who can doubt that 
this deliberate assimilation, the typical artistic process, 
began on Pigeon Creek? Lincoln never would have cap- 
tured as he did his plowboy audience, set them roaring with 
laughter in the inten^als of labor, had he not given them 
back their own tales done over into new forms brilliantly 
beyond their powers of conception. That these tales were 
gross, even ribald, might have been taken for granted, even 
had we not positive evidence of the fact. Otherwise none 
of that uproarious laughter which we may be sure sounded 
often across shimmering harvest fields while stalwart young 
pagans, ever ready to pause, leaned, bellowing, on the 
handles of their scythes, Abe Lincoln having just then 
finished a story. 

Though the humor of these stories was Falstaffian, to 
say the least, though Lincoln was cock of the walk among 
the plowboys of Pigeon Creek, a significant fact with regard 
to him here comes into view. Not an anecdote survives 
that in any way suggests personal licentiousness. Scrupu- 
lous men who in after-time were offended by his coarseness 
of speech — for more or less of the artist of Pigeon Creek 
stuck to him almost to the end; he talked in fables, often 
in gross fables — these men, despite their annoyance, felt 
no impulse to attribute to him personal habits in harmony 
with his tales. On the other hand, they were puzzled by 
their own impression, never wavering, that he was "pure- 
minded." The clue which they did not have lay in the 
nature of his double life. That part of him which, in our 
modern jargon, we call his "reactions" obeyed a curious 
law. They dwelt in his outer life without penetrating to 
the inner; but all his impulses of personal action were se- 



i8 LINCOLN 

curely seated deep within. Even at nineteen, for any one 
attuned to spiritual meaning, he would have struck the note 
of mystery, faintly, perhaps, but certainly. To be sure, no 
hint of this reached the minds of his rollicking comrades of 
the harvest field. It was not for such as they to perceive 
the problem of his character, to suspect that he was a genius, 
or to guess that a time would come when sincere men would 
form impressions of him as dissimilar as black and white. 
And so far as it went the observation of the plowboys was 
correct. The man they saw was indeed a reflection of 
themselves. But it was a reflection only. Their influence 
entered into the real man no more than the image in a 
mirror has entered into the glass. 



Ill 



A VILLAGE LEADER 



Though placid, this early Lincoln was not resigned. 
He differed from the boors of Pigeon Creek in wanting 
some other sort of life. What it was he wanted, he did 
not know. His reading had not as yet given him definite 
ambitions. It may well be that New Orleans was the clue 
to such stirring in him as there was of that discontent 
which fanciful people have called divine. Remembering 
New Orleans, could any imaginative youth be content with 
Pigeon Creek? 

In the spring of 1830, shortly after he came of age, he 
agreed for once with his father whose chronic vagrancy 
had reasserted itself. The whole family set out again on 
their wanderings and made their way in an oxcart to a new 
halting place on the Sangamon River in Illinois. There 
Abraham helped his father clear another piece of land for 
another illusive "start" in life. The following spring he 
parted with his family and struck out for himself.^ His 
next adventure was a second trip as a boatman to New 
Orleans. Can one help suspecting there was vague hope 
in his heart that he might be adventuring to the land of 
hearts' desire? If there was, the yokels who were his 
fellow boatmen never suspected it. One of them long 
afterward asserted that Lincoln returned from New Or- 
leans fiercely rebellious against its central institution, slav- 
ery, and determined to "hit that thing" whenever he could. 

19 



20 LINCOLN 

The legend centers in his witnessing a slave auction and 
giving voice to his horror in a style quite unlike any of his 
authentic utterances. The authority for all this is doubt- 
ful.- Furthermore, the Lincoln of 1831 was not yet 
awakened. That inner life in which such a reaction might 
take place was still largely dormant. The outer life, the 
life of the harvest clown, was still a thick insulation. Ap- 
parently, the waking of the inner life, the termination of 
its dormant stage, was reserved for an incident far more 
personal that fell upon him in desolating force a few 
years later. 

Following the New Orleans venture, came a period as 
storekeeper for a man named Denton Offut, in perhaps 
the least desirable town in Illinois — a dreary little huddle of 
houses gathered around Rutledge's Mill on the Sangamon 
River and called New Salem. Though a few of its people 
were of a better sort than any Lincoln had yet known — 
except, perhaps, the miller's family in the old days in 
Kentucky — and still a smaller few were of fine quality, the 
community for the most part was hopeless. A fatality for 
unpromising neighborhoods overhangs like a doom the early 
part of this strange life. All accounts of New Salem rep- 
resent it as predominantly a congregation of the worthless, 
flung together by unaccountable accident at a spot where 
there was no genuine reason for a town's existence. A 
casual town, created by drifters, and void of settled pur- 
pose. Small wonder that ere long it vanished from the 
map; that after a few years its drifting congregation dis- 
persed to every corner of the horizon, and was no more. 
But during its brief existence it staged an episode in the 
development of Lincoln's character. However, this did not 
take place at once. And before it happened, came another 



A VILLAGE LEADER 21 

turn of his soul's highway scarcely less important. He dis- 
covered, or thought he discovered, what he wanted. His 
vague ambition took shape. He decided to try to be a 
politician. At twenty-three, after living in New Salem less 
than a year, this audacious, not to say impertinent, young 
man offered himself to the voters of Sangamon County as u 
a candidate for the Legislature. At this time that humility 
which was eventually his characteristic had not appeared. 
It may be dated as subsequent to New Salem — a further 
evidence that the deep spiritual experience which closed this 
chapter formed a crisis. Before then, at New Salem as at 
Pigeon Creek, he was but a variant, singularly decent, of 
the boisterous, frolicking, impertinent type that instinctively 
sought the laxer neighborhoods of the frontier. An echo 
of Pigeon Creek informed the young storekeeper's first 
state paper, the announcement of his candidacy, in the year 
1832.^ His first political speech was in a curious vein, glib, 
intimate and fantastic : "Fellow citizens, I presume you all 
know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have 
been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for 
the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet like the 
old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I 
am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high 
protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political 
principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not it will be 
all the same."* 

However, this bold throw of the dice of fortune was 
not quite so impertinent as it seems. During the months 
when he was in charge of Offut's grocery store he had made 
a conquest of New Salem. The village grocery in those 
days was the village club. It had its constant gathering of 
loafers all of whom were endowed with votes. It was the 



22 ^ LINCOLN 

one place through which passed the whole population, in 
and out, one time or another. To a clever storekeeper it 
gave a chance to establish a following. Had he, as Lincoln 
had, the gift of story-telling, the gift of humor, he was a 
made man. Pigeon Creek over again! Lincoln's wealth 
of funny stories gave Offut's grocery somewhat the role of 
a vaudeville theater and made the storekeeper as popular a 
man as there was in New Salem. 

In another way he repeated his conquest of Pigeon 
Creek. New Salem had its local Alsatia known as Clary's 
Grove whose insolent young toughs led by their chief, Jack 
Armstrong, were the terror of the neighborhood. The 
groceries paid them tribute in free drinks. Any luckless 
storekeeper who incurred their displeasure found his store 
some fine morning a total wreck. Lincoln challenged Jack 
Armstrong to a duel with fists. It was formally arranged. 
A ring was formed; the whole village was audience; and 
Lincoln thrashed him to a finish. But this was only a 
small part of his triumph. His physical prowess, joined 
with his humor and his companionableness, entirely capti- 
vated Clary's Grove. Thereafter, it was storekeeper Lin- 
coln's pocket borough; its ruffians were his body-guard. 
Woe to any one who made trouble for their hero. 

There were still other causes for his quick rise to the 
position of village leader. His unfailing kindness was one; 
his honesty was another. Tales were related of his scrupu- 
lous dealings, such as walking a distance of miles in order 
to correct a trifling error he had made, in selling a poor 
woman less than the proper weight of tea. Then, too, by 
New Salem standards, he was educated. Long practice on 
the shovel at Pigeon Creek had given him a good hand- 
writing, and one of the first things he did at New Salem 



A VILLAGE LEADER 23 

was to volunteer to be clerk of elections. And there was 
a distinct moral superiority. Little as this would have sig- 
nified unbacked by his giant strength since it had that 
authority behind it his morality set him apart from his 
followers, different, imposing. He seldom, if ever, drank 
whisky. Sobriety was already the rule of his life, both 
outward and inward. At the same time he was not cen- 
sorious. He accepted the devotion of Clary's Grove with- 
out the slightest attempt to make over its bravoes in his 
own image. He sympathized with its ideas of sport. For 
all his kindliness to humans of every sort much of his sen- 
sitiveness for animals had passed away. He was not averse 
to cock fighting; he enjoyed a horse race.^ Altogether, in 
his outer life, before the catastrophe that revealed him to 
himself, he was quite as much in the tone of New Salem 
as ever in that of Pigeon Creek. When the election came 
he got every vote in New Salem except three.® 

But the village was a small part of Sangamon County. 
Though Lincoln received a respectable number of votes else- 
where, his total was well down in the running. He re- 
mained an inconspicuous minority candidate. 

Meanwhile Offut's grocery had failed. In the midst 
of the legislative campaign, Offut's farmer storekeeper vol- 
unteered for the Indian War with Black Hawk, but re- 
turned to New Salem shortly before the election without 
having once smelled powder. Since his peers were not of 
a mind to give him immediate occupation in governing, he 
turned again to business. He formed a partnership with a 
man named Berry. They bought on credit the wreck of 
a grocery that had been sacked by Lincoln's friends of 
Clary's Grove, and started business as "General Merchants," 
under the style of Berry & Lincoln. There followed a year 



24 LINCOLN 

of complete unsuccess. Lincoln demonstrated that he was 
far more inclined to read any chance book that came his 
way than to attend to business, and that he had "no money 
sense." The new firm went the way of Offut's grocery, 
leaving nothing behind it but debt. The debts did not trouble 
Berry; Lincoln assumed them all. They formed a dreadful 
load which he bore with his usual patience and little by 
little discharged. Fifteen years passed before again he was 
a free man financially. 

A new and powerful influence came into his life during 
the half idleness of his unsuccessful storekeeping. It is 
worth repeating in his own words, or what seems to be the 
fairly accurate recollection of his words: "One day a 
man who was migrating to the West, drove up in front of 
my store with a wagon which contained his family and 
household plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old 
barrel for which he had no room in his wagon, and which 
he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it 
but to oblige him I bought it and paid him, I think, a half 
a dollar for it. Without further examination I put it away 
in the store and forgot all about it. Sometime after, in 
overhauling things, I came upon the barrel and emptying it 
upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom 
of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone's Commen- 
taries. I began to read those famous works, and I had 
plenty of time; for during the long simimer days when 
the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were 
few and far between. The more I read, the more intensely 
interested I became. Never in my whole life was my 
mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured 
them."^ 



A VILLAGE LEADER 25 

The majesty of the law at the bottom of a barrel of 
trash discovered at a venture and taking instant possession 
of the discoverer's mind ! Like the genius issuing grandly 
in the smoke cloud from the vase drawn up out of the sea 
by the fisher in the Arabian tale ! But this great book was 
not the only magic casket discovered by the idle store- 
keeper, the broken seals of which released mighty pres- 
ences. Both Shakespeare and Burns were revealed to him 
in this period. Never after did either for a moment cease to 
be his companions. These literary treasures were found at 
Springfield twenty miles from New Salem, whither Lincoln 
went on foot many a time to borrow books. 

His subsistence, after the failure of Berry & Lincoln, 
was derived from the friendliness of the County Surveyor 
Calhoun, who was a Democrat, while Lincoln called himself 
a Whig. Calhoun offered him the post of assistant. In 
accepting, Lincoln again displayed the honesty that was 
beginning to be known as his characteristic. He stipulated 
that he should be perfectly free to express his opinions, that 
the office should not be in any respect, a bribe. This being 
conceded, he went to work furiously on a treatise upon sur- 
veying, and astonishingly soon, with the generous help of the 
schoolmaster of New Salem, was able to take up his duties. 
His first fee was "two buckskins which Hannah Armstrong 
'fixed' on his pants so the briers would not wear them 
out."8 

Thus time passed until 1834 when he staked his only 
wealth, his popularity, in the gamble of an election. This 
time he was successful. During the following winter he 
sat in the Legislature of Illinois; a huge, uncouth, mainly 
silent member, making apparently no impression whatever, 



26 LINCOLN 

very probably striking the educated members as a nonentity 
in homespun. 

In the spring of 1835, he was back in New Salem, busy 
again with his surveying. Kind friends had secured him 
the office of local postmaster. The delivery of letters was 
now combined with going to and fro as a surveyor. As 
the mail came but once a week, and as whatever he had 
to deliver could generally be carried in his hat, and as 
payment was in proportion to business done, his revenues 
continued small. Nevertheless, in the view of New Salem, 
he was getting on. 
"f And then suddenly misfortune overtook him. His great 
adventure, the first of those spiritual agonies of which he 
was destined to endure so many, approached. Hitherto, 
since childhood, women had played no part in his stor}^ 
All the recollections of his youth are vague in their refer- 
ences to the feminine. As a boy at Pigeon Creek when 
old Thomas was hiring him out, the women of the settle- 
ment liked to have him around, apparently because he was 
kindly and ever ready to do odd jobs in addition to his 
regular work. However, until 1835, his story is that of a 
man's man, possibly because there was so much of the femi- 
nine in his own make-up. In 1835 came a change. A girl 
of New Salem, a pretty village maiden, the best the poor 
place could produce, revealed him to himself. Sweet Ann 
Rutledge, the daughter of the tavern-keeper, was his first 
love. But destiny was against them. A brief engagement 
was terminated by her sudden death late in the summer of 
1835.^ Of this shadowy love-affair very little is known, 
though much romantic fancy has been woven about it. Its 
significance for after-time is in Lincoln's "reaction." There 
had been much sickness in New Salem the summer in which 



A VILLAGE LEADER 27 

Ann died. Lincoln had given himself freely as nurse — the 
depth of his companionableness thus being proved — and 
was in an overwrought condition when his sorrow struck 
him. A last interview with the dying girl, at which no one 
was present, left him quite unmanned. A period of violent 
agitation followed. For a time he seemed completely trans- 
formed. The sunny Lincoln, the delight of Clary's Grove, 
had vanished. In his place was a desolated soul — a brother 
to dragons, in the terrible imagery of Job — a dweller in the 
dark places of affliction. It was his mother reborn in. 
him. It was all the shadowiness of his mother's world; 
all that frantic reveling in the mysteries of woe to which, 
hitherto, her son had been an alien. To the simple minds 
of the villagers with their hard-headed, practical way of 
keeping all things, especially love and grief, in the outer 
layer of consciousness, this revelation of an emotional 
terror was past understanding. Some of them, true to their 
type, pronounced him insane. He was watched with 
especial vigilance during storms, fogs, damp gloomy 
weather, "for fear of an accident." Surely, it was only a 
crazy man, in New Salem psychology, who was heard to 
say, "I can never be reconciled to have the snow, rains ^ 
and storms beat upon her grave."^^ 

In this crucial moment when the real base of his char- 
acter had been suddenly revealed — all the passionateness of 
the forest shadow, the unfathomable gloom laid so deep 
at the bottom of his soul — he was carried through his spir- 
itual eclipse by the loving comprehension of two fine 
friends. New Salem was not all of the sort of Clary's 
Grove. Near by on a farm, in a lovely, restful landscape, 
lived two people who deserve to be remembered, Bowlin 
Green and his wife. They drew Lincoln into the seclusion 



28 LINCOLN 

of their home, and there in the gleaming days of autumn, 
when everywhere in the near woods flickered downward, 
slowly, idly, the falling leaves golden and scarlet, Lincoln 
recovered his equanimity. ^^ But the hero of Pigeon Creek, 
of Clary's Grove, did not quite come back. Li the outward 
life, to be sure, a day came when the sunny story-teller, 
the victor of Jack Armstrong, was once more what Jack 
would have called his real self. In the inner life where 
alone was his reality, the temper which affliction had re- 
vealed to him was established. Ever after, at heart, he 
was to dwell alone, facing, silent, those inscrutable things 
which to the primitive mind are things of every day. 
Always, he was to have for his portion in his real self, 
the dimness of twilight, or at best, the night with its 
stars, "never glad, confident morning again." 



IV 



REVELATIONS 

From this time during many years almost all the men 
who saw beyond the surface in Lincoln have indicated, 
in one way or another, their vision of a constant quality. 
The observers of the surface did not see it. That is to say, 
Lincoln did not at once cast off any of his previous char- 
acteristics. It is doubtful if he ever did. His experience 
was tenaciously cumulative. Everything he once acquired, 
he retained, both in the outer life and the inner; and there- 
fore, to those who did not have the clue to him, he appeared 
increasingly contradictory, one thing on the surface, another 
within. Clary's Grove and the evolutions from Clary's 
Grove, continued to think of him as their leader. On the 
other hand, men who had parted with the mere humanism 
of Qary's Grove, who were a bit analytical, who thought 
themselves still more analytical, seeing somewhat beneath 
the surface, reached conclusions similar to those of a shrewd 
Congressman who long afterward said that Lincoln was 
not a leader of men but a manager of men.^ This astute 
distinction was not true of the Lincoln the Congressman 
confronted; nevertheless, it betrays much both of the 
observer and of the man he tried to observe. In the Con- 
gressman's day, what he thought he saw was in reality the 
shadow of a Lincoln that had passed away, passed so slowly, 
so imperceptibly that few people knew it had passed. Dur- 
ing many years following 1835, the distinction in the main, 

29 



30 LINCOLN 

applied. So thought the men who, Hke Lincoln's latest law 
partner, William H. Herndon, were not derivatives of 
Clary's Grove. The Lincoln of these days was the only one 
Herndon knew. How deeply he understood Lincoln is 
justly a matter of debate; but this, at least, he understood 
— that Clary's Grove, in attributing to Lincoln its own 
idea of leadership, was definitely wrong. He saw in Lin- 
coln, in all the larger matters, a tendency to wait on events, 
to take the lead indicated by events, to do what shallow 
people would have called mere drifting. To explain this, 
he labeled him a fatalist.^ The label was only approximate, 
as most labels are. But Herndon's effort to find one is 
significant. In these years, Lincoln took the initiative — 
when he took it at all — in a way that most people did not 
recognize. His spirit was ever aloof. It was only the 
every-day, the external Lincoln that came into practical 
contact with his fellows. 

This is especially true of the growing politician. He 
served four consecutive terms in the Legislature without 
doing anything that had the stamp of true leadership. He 
was not like either of the two types of politicians that gen- 
erally made up the legislatures of those days — the men who 
dealt in ideas as political counters, and the men who were 
grafters without in their naive way knowing that they 
were grafters. As a member of the Legislature, Lincoln 
did not deal in ideas. He was instinctively incapable of 
graft. A curiously routine politician, one who had none 
of the earmarks familiar in such a person. Aloof, and yet, 
more than ever companionable, the power he had in the 
Legislature — for he had acquired a measure of power — 
was wholly personal. Though called a Whig, it was not 
as a party man but as a personal friend that he was able 



REVELATIONS 31 

to carl*}'- through his legislative triumphs. His most signal 
achievement was wholly a matter of personal politics. There 
was a general demand for the removal of the capital from 
its early seat at Vandalia, and rivalry among other towns 
was keen. Sangamon County was bent on winning the 
prize for its own Springfield. Lincoln was put in charge 
of the Springfield strategy. How he played his cards may 
be judged from the recollections of another member who 
seems to have anticipated that noble political maxim, 
"What's the Constitution between friends?" "Lincoln," 
he says, "made Webb and me vote for the removal, though 
we belonged to the southern end of the state. We defended 
our vote before our constituents by saying that necessity 
would ultimately force the seat of government to a central 
position ; but in reality, we gave the vote to Lincoln because 
we liked him, because we wanted to oblige our friend, and 
because we recognized him as our leader."" 

And yet on the great issues of the day he could not 
lead them. In 1837, the movement of the militant aboli- 
tionists, still but a few years old, was beginning to set the 
Union by the ears. The illegitimate child of Calvinism and 
the rights of man, it damned with one anathema every 
holder of slaves and also every opponent of slavery ex- 
cept its own uncompromising adherents. Its animosity was 
trained particularly on every suggestion that designed to 
uproot slavery without creating an economic crisis ; that 
would follow England's example, and terminate the "pecu- 
liar institution" by purchase. The religious side of aboli- 
tion came out in its fury against such ideas. Slave-holders 
were Canaanites. The new cult were God's own people 
who were appointed to feel anew the joy of Israel hewing 
Agag asunder. Fanatics, terrible, heroic, unashamed, they 



32 LINCOLN 

made two sorts of enemies — not only the partisans of 
slavery, but all those sane reformers who, while hating 
slavery, hated also the blood-lust that would make the hew- 
ing of Agag a respectable device of political science. Among 
the partisans of slavery were the majority of the Illinois 
Legislature. Early in 1837, they passed resolutions con- 
demning abolitionism. Whereupon it was revealed — not 
that anybody at the time cared to know the fact, or took 
it to heart — that among the other sort of the enemies of 
abolition was our good young friend, everybody's good 
friend, Abe Lincoln. He drew up a protest against the 
Legislature's action; but for all his personal influence in 
other affairs, he could persuade only one member to sign 
with him. Not his to command at will those who "rec- 
ognized him as their leader" in the orthodox political game 
— so discreet, in that it left principles for some one else to 
be troubled about ! Lincoln's protest was quite too far out 
of the ordinary for personal politics to endure it. The 
signers were asked to proclaim their belief "that the insti- 
tution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad 
policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines 
tends rather to promote than to abate its evils."^ 

The singular originality of this position, sweeping aside 
as vain both participants in the new political duel, was quite 
lost on the little world in which Lincoln lived. For after- 
time it has the interest of a bombshell that failed to explode. 
It is the dawn of Lincoln's intellect. In his lonely inner 
life, this crude youth, this lover of books in a village where 
books were curiosities, had begun to think. The stages of 
his transition from mere story-telling yokel — intellectual 
only as the artist is intellectual, in his methods of handling — 
to the man of ideas, are wholly lost. And in this fact we 



REVELATIONS 33 

have a prophecy of all the years to come. Always we 
shall seek in vain for the early stages of Lincoln's ideas. 
His mind will never reveal itself until the moment at which 
it engages the world. No wonder, in later times, his close 
associates pronounced him the most secretive of men; that 
one of the keenest of his observers said that the more you 
knew of Lincoln, the less you knew of him.^ 

Except for the handicap of his surroundings, his intel- 
lectual start would seem belated; even allowing for his 
handicap, it was certainly slow. He was now twenty-eight. 
Pretty well on to reveal for the first time intellectual power ! 
Another characteristic here. His mind worked slowly. But 
it is worth observing that the ideas of the protest were 
never abandoned. Still a third characteristic, mental tenac- 
ity. To the end of his days, he looked askance at the temper 
of abolitionism, regarded it ever as one of the chief evils 
of political science. And quite as significant was another 
idea of the protest which also had developed from within, 
which also he never abandoned. 

On the question of the power of the national govern- 
ment with regard to slavery, he took a position not in 
accord with either of the political creeds of his day. The 
Democrats had already formulated their doctrine that the 
national government was a thing of extremely limited 
powers, the ''glorified policeman" of a certain school of 
publicists reduced almost to a minus quantity. The Whigs, 
though amiably vague on most things except money-making 
by state aid, were supposed to stand for a "strong"' cen- 
tral government. Abolitionism had forced on both parties 
a troublesome question, "What about slavery in the District 
of Columbia, where the national government was supreme?" 
The Democrats were prompt in their reply: Let the glori- 



34 LINCOLN 

fied policeman keep the peace and leave private interests, 
such as slave-holding, alone. The Whigs evaded, tried 
not to apply their theory of "strong" government; they were 
fearful lest they offend one part of their membership if 
they asserted that the nation had no right to abolish slavery 
in the District, fearful of offending others if they did not. 
Lincoln's protest asserted that "the Congress of the United 
States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia but ... the power 
ought not to be exercised, unless at the request of the Dis- 
trict." In other words, Lincoln, when suddenly out of the 
storm and stress that followed Ann's death his mentality 
flashes forth, has an attitude toward political power that was 
not a consequence of his environment, that sets him apart as 
a type of man rare in the history of statesmanship. What 
other American politician of his day — very few American 
politicians of any day have — dared assert at once the exist- 
ence of a power and a moral obligation not to use it? The 
instinctive American m^ode of limiting power is to deny 
its existence. Our politicians so deeply distrust our tempera- 
ment that whatever they may say for rhetorical effect, they 
will not, whenever there is any danger of their being taken 
at their word, trust anything to moral law. Their minds 
are normally mechanical. The specific, statutory limitation 
is the only one that for them has reality. The truth that 
temper in politics is as great a factor as law was no more 
comprehensible to the politicians of 1837 than, say — Ham- 
let or The Last Judgment. But just this is what the crude 
young Lincoln understood. Somehow he had found it in 
the depths of his own nature. The explanation, if any, is 
to be found in his heredity. Out of the shadowy parts of 
him, beyond the limits of his or any man's conscious vision, 



REVELATIONS 35 

dim, unexplored, but real and insistent as those forest 
recesses from which his people came, arise the two ideas : 
the faith in a mighty governing power; the equal faith 
that it should use its might with infinite tenderness, that it 
should be slow to compel results, even the result of right- 
eousness, that it should be tolerant of human errors, that 
it should transform them slowly, gradually, as do the 
gradual forces of nature, as do the sun and the rain. 

And such was to be the real Lincoln whenever he spoke 
out, to the end. His tonic was struck by his first significant 
utterance at the age of twenty-eight. How inevitable that 
it should have no significance to the congregation of good 
fellows who thought of him merely as one of their own 
sort, who put up with their friend's vagary, and speedily 
forgot it. 

The moment was a dreary one in Lincoln's fortunes. 
By dint of much reading of borrowed books, he had suc- 
ceeded in obtaining from the easy-going powers that were 
in those days, a license to practise law. In the spring of 
1837 he removed to Springfield. He had scarcely a dollar 
in his pocket. Riding into Springfield on a borrowed horse, 
with all the property he owned, including his law books, 
in two saddle-bags, he went to the only cabinet-maker in 
the town and ordered a single bedstead. He then went 
to the store of Joshua F. Speed. The meeting, an immensely 
eventful one for Lincoln, as well as a classic in the history 
of genius in poverty, is best told in Speed's words : "He 
came into my store, set his saddle-bags on the counter and 
inquired what the furnishings for a single bedstead would 
cost. I took slate and pencil, made a calculation and found 
the sum for furnishings complete, would amount to seven- 
teen dollars in all. Said he : 'It is probably cheap enough, 



36 LINCOLN 

but I want to say that, cheap as it is, I have not the money 
to pay; but if you will credit me until Christmas, and my 
experiment here as a lawyer is a success, I will pay you 
then. If I fail in that I will probably never pay you at 
all.' The tone of his voice was so melancholy that I felt 
for him. I looked up at him and I thought then as I think 
now that I never saw so gloomy and melancholy a face in 
my life. I said to him: 'So small a debt seems to affect 
you so deeply, I think I can suggest a plan by which you 
will be able to attain your end without incurring any debt. 
I have a very large room and a very large double bed in it, 
which you are perfectly welcome to share with me if you 
choose.' 'Where is your room?' he asked. 'Up-stairs,' said 
I, pointing to the stairs leading from the store to my room. 
Without saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his arm, 
went up-stairs, set them down on the floor, came down 
again, and with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles 
exclaimed, 'Well, Speed, I'm moved.' "^ 

This was the beginning of a friendship which appears 
to have been the only one of its kind Lincoln ever had. 
Late in life, with his gifted private secretaries, with one or 
two brilliant men whom he did not meet until middle age, 
he had something like intimate comradeship. But even they 
did not break the prevailing solitude of his inner life. His 
aloofness of soul became a fixed condition. The one in- 
truder in that lonely inner world was Speed. In the great 
collection of Lincoln's letters none have the intimate note 
except the letters to Speed. And even these are not truly 
intimate with the exception of a single group inspired all 
by the same train of events. The deep, instinctive reserve 
of Lincoln's nature was incurable. The exceptional group 
of letters involve his final love-affair. Four years after his 



REVELATIONS 37 

removal to Springfield, Lincoln became engaged to Miss 
Mary Todd. By that time he had got a start at the law and 
was no longer in grinding poverty. If not yet prosperous, 
he had acquired "prospects" — the strong likelihood of better 
things to come so dear to the buoyant heart of the early 
West. 

Hospitable Springfield, some of whose best men had 
known him in the Legislature, opened its doors to him. 
His humble origin, his poor condition, were forgiven. In 
true Western fashion, he was frankly put on trial to show 
what was in him. If he could "make good" no further 
questions would be asked. And in every-day matters, his 
companionableness rose to the occasion. Male Springfield 
was captivated almost as easily as New Salem. 

But all this was of the outer life. If the ferment within 
was constant between 1835 and 1840, the fact is lost in his 
taciturnity. But there is some evidence of a restless emo- 
tional life. 

In the rebound after the woe following Ann's death, 
he had gone questing after happiness — such a real thing 
to him, now that he had discovered the terror of unhappi- 
ness — in a foolish half-hearted courtship of a bouncing, 
sensible girl named Mary Owens, who saw that he was not 
really in earnest, decided that he was deficient in those 
"little links that make up a woman's happiness," and. sent 
him about his business — rather, on the whole, to his relief.'^ 
The affair with Miss Todd had a different tone from the 
other. The lady was of another world socially. The West 
in those days swarmed with younger sons, or the equivalents 
of younger sons, seeking their fortunes, whom sisters and 
cousins were frequently visiting. Mary Todd was sister- 
in-law to a leading citizen of Springfield. Her origin was 



38 LINCOLN 

of Kentucky and Virginia, with definite claims to distinc- 
tion. Though a family genealogy mounts as high as the 
sixth century, sober history is content with a grandfather 
and great grandfather who were military men of some 
repute, two great uncles who were governors, and another 
who was a cabinet minister. Rather imposing contrasted 
with the family tree of the child of Thomas Lincoln and 
Nancy Hanks ! Even more significant was the lady's edu- 
cation. She had been to a school where young ladies of 
similar social pretensions were allowed to speak only the 
French language. She was keenly aware of the role marked 
out for her by destiny, and quite convinced that she would 
always in every way live up to it. 

The course of her affair with Lincoln did not run 
smooth. There were wide differences of temperament; 
quarrels of some sort — just what, gossip to this day has 
busied itself trying to discover — and on January i, 1841, 
the engagement was broken. Before the end of the month 
he wrote to his law partner apologizing for his inability 
to be coherent on business matters. "For not giving you 
a general summary of news, you must pardon me ; it is not 
in my power to do so. I am now the most miserable man 
living. If what I feel were distributed to the whole human 
family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. 
Whether I shall ever be better, I can not tell. I awfully 
forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. 
I must die or be better, it appears to me ... a change 
of scene might help me." 

His friend Speed became his salvation. Speed closed 
out his business and carried Lincoln off to visit his own 
relations in Kentucky. It was the devotion of Bowlin 
Green and his wife over again. But the psychology of the 



REVELATIONS 39 

event was much more singular. Lincoln, in the inner life, 
had progressed a long way since the death of Ann, and the 
progress was mainly in the way of introspection, of self- 
analysis. He had begun to brood. As always, the change 
did not reveal itself until an event in the outward life called 
it forth like a rising ghost from the abyss of his silences. 
His friends had no suspicion that in his real self, beneath 
the thick disguise of his external sunniness, he was forever 
brooding, questioning, analyzing, searching after the hearts 
of things both within and without. 

"In the winter of 1840 and 1841," writes Speed, "he was 
unhappy about the engagement to his wife — not being 
entirely satisfied that his heart was going with his hand. 
How much he suffered then on that account, none knew 
so well as myself; he disclosed his whole heart to me. In 
the summer of 1841 I became engaged to my wife. He 
was here on a visit when I courted her ; and strange to say, 
something of the same feeling which I regarded as so 
foolish in him took possession of me, and kept me very 
unhappy from the time of my engagement until I was 
married. This will explain the deep interest he manifested 
in his letters on my account. . . . One thing is 
plainly discernible; if I had not been married and happy, 
far more happy than I ever expected to be, he would not 
have married." 

Whether or not Speed was entirely right in his final 
conclusion, it is plain that he and Lincoln were remarkably 
alike in temperament; that whatever had caused the break 
in Lincoln's engagement was repeated in his friend's expe- 
rience when the latter reached a certain degree of emotional 
tension; that this paralleling of Lincoln's own experience in 
the experience of the friend so like himself, broke up for 



40 LINCOLN 

once the solitude of his inner Hfe and dehvered him from 
some dire inward terror. Both men were deeply introspec- 
tive. Each had that overpowering sense of the emotional 
responsibilities of marriage, which is bred in the bone of 
certain h3^per-sensitive types — at least in the Anglo-Saxon 
race. But neither reahzed this trait in himself until, having 
blithely pursued his impulse to the point of committal, his 
spiritual conscience suddenly awakened and he asked of 
his heart, "Do I truly love her? Am I perfectly sure the 
emotion is permanent?" 

It is on this speculation that the unique group of the 
intimate letters to Speed are developed. They were written 
after Lincoln's return to Springfield, while Speed was 
wrestling with the demon of self-analysis. In the period 
which they cover, Lincoln delivered himself from that same 
demon and recovered serenity. Before long he was writ- 
ing: "I know what the painful point with you is at all 
times when you are unhappy; it is an apprehension that 
you do not love her as you should. What nonsense ! How 
came you to court her? Was it because you thought she 
deserved it and that you had given her reason to expect it ? 
If it was for that, why did not the same reason make you 
court Ann Todd, and at least twenty others of whom you 
can think, to whom it would apply with greater force than 
to her? Did you court her for her wealth? Why, you 
said she had none. But you say you reasoned yourself into 
it. What do you mean by that ? Was it not that you found 
yourself unable to reason yourself out of it?" And much 
more of the same shrcAvd sensible sort, — a picture uninten- 
tionally of his own state of mind no less than of his friend's. 

This strange episode reveals also that amid Lincoln's 
silences, while the outward man appeared engrossed in every- 




Earliest Portrait of Lincoln. Age Thirty-nine 



REVELATIONS 41 

$^ 

day matters, the inward man had been seeking reHgion. 

His failure to accept the forms of his mother's creed did 

not rest on any lack of the spiritual need. Though undefined, 

his religion glimmers at intervals through the Speed letters. 

When Speed's fiancee fell ill and her tortured lover was in 

a paroxysm of remorse and grief, Lincoln wrote: "I hope 

and believe that your present anxiety and distress about her 

health and her life must and will forever banish those horrid 

doubts which I know you sometimes felt as to tb.e truth of 

your affection for her. If they can once and forever be 

removed (and I feel a presentment that the Almighty has 

sent your present affliction expressly for that object) surely 

nothing can come in their stead to fill their immeasurable 

measure of misery. . . . Should she, as you fear, be 

destined to an early grave, it is indeed a great consolation to 

know she is so well prepared to meet it." 

Again he wrote : "I was always superstitious. I be- 
lieve God made me one of the instruments of bringing you 
and your Fanny together, which union I have no doubt He 
had foreordained. Whatever He designs He will do for me 
yet. 'Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord' is my 
text now." 

The duality in self-torture of these spiritual brethren 
endured in all about a year and a half, and closed with 
Speed's marriage. Lincoln was now entirely delivered from 
his demon. He wrote Speed a charming letter, serene, 
affectipnate, touched with gentle banter, valiant though with 
a hint of disillusion as to their common type. "I tell you. 
Speed, our forebodings (for which you and I are peculiar) 
are all the worst sort of nonsense. . . . You say you 
much fear that that elysium of which you have dreamed so 
much is never to be realized. Well, if it shall not, I dare 



42 UNCOLN 

swear it will not be the fault of her who is now your wife. 
I have no doubt that it is the peculiar misfortune of both you 
and me to dream dreams of elysium far exceeding all that 
anything earthly can realize."^ 



PROSPERITY 

How Lincoln's engagement was patched up is as de- 
licious an uncertainty, from gossip's point of view, as how it 
had been broken off. Possibly, as many people have as- 
serted, it was brought about by an event of which, in the 
irony of fate, Lincoln ever after felt ashamed.^ An im- 
pulsive, not overwise politician, James Shields, a man of 
many peculiarities, was saucily lampooned in a Springfield 
paper by some jaunty girls, one of whom was Miss Todd. 
Somehow, — the whole affair is very dim, — Lincoln acted 
as their literary adviser. Shields demanded the name of 
his detractor; Lincoln assumed the responsibility; a chal- 
lenge followed. Lincoln was in a ridiculous position. He 
extricated himself by a device which he used more than 
once thereafter; he gravely proposed the impossible. He 
demanded conditions which would have made the duel a 
burlesque — a butcher's match with cavalry broadswords. 
But Shields, who was flawlessly literal, insisted. The two 
met and only on the dueling ground was the quarrel at last 
talked into oblivion by the seconds. Whether this was the 
cause of the reconciliation with Miss Todd, or a conse- 
quence, or had nothing to do with it, remains for the lovers 
of the unimportant to decide. The only sure fact m this 
connection is the marriage which took place November 4, 
1842.2 

43 



44 LINCOLN 

Mrs. Lincoln's character has been much discussed. 
Gossip, though with very httle to go on, has built up a 
tradition that the marriage was unhappy. If one were to 
beheve the half of what has been put in print, one would 
have to conclude that the whole business was a wretched 
mistake; that Lincoln found married life intolerable because 
of the fussily dictatorial self-importance of his wife. But 
the authority for all these tales is meager. Not one is 
traceable to the parties themselves. Probably it will never 
be known till the end of time what is false in them, what 
true. About all that can be disengaged from this cloud of 
illusive witnesses is that Spring-field wondered why Mary 
Todd married Lincoln. He was still poor ; so poor that after 
marriage they lived at the Globe Tavern "on four dollars 
a week. And the lady had been sought by prosperous men ! 
The lowliness of Lincoln's origin went ill with her high 
notions of her family's importance. She was downright, 
high-tempered, dogmatic, but social; he was devious, slow 
to wrath, tentative, solitary; his ver}^ appearance, then as 
afterward, was against him. Though not the hideous man 
he was later made out to be — the "gorilla" of enemy carica- 
turists — he was rugged of feature, with a lower lip that 
tended to protrude. His immense frame was thin and angu- 
lar; his arms were inordinately long; hands, feet and eye- 
brows were large ; skin swarthy ; hair coarse, black and gen- 
erally unkempt. Only the amazing, dreamful eyes, and a 
fineness in the texture of the skin, redeemed the face and 
gave it distinction." Why did precise, complacent Miss Todd 
pick out so strange a man for her mate ? The story that she 
married him for ambition, divining what he was to be — 
like Jane Welsh in the conventional story of Carlyle — argues 
too much of the gift of prophecy. Whatever her motive, 



PROSPERITY 45 

it is more than likely that she was what the commerciahsm 
of to-day would call an "asset." She had certain qualities 
that her husband lacked. For one, she had that intuition 
for the main chance which shallow people confound with 
practical judgment. Her soul inhabited the obvious; but 
within the horizon of the obvious she was shrewd, courage- 
ous and stubborn. Not any danger that Mary Lincoln 
would go wandering after dreams, visions, presences, such 
as were drifting ever in a ghostly procession at the back 
of her husband's mind. There was a danger in him that 
was to grow with the years, a danger that the outer life 
might be swamped by the inner, that the ghosts within might 
carry him away with them, away from fact — seeking — seek- 
ing. That this never occurred may be fairly credited, or 
at least very plausibly credited, to the firm-willed, the utterly 
matter-of-fact little person he had married. How far he 
enjoyed the mode of his safe-guarding is a fruitless specu- 
lation. 

Another result that may, perhaps, be due to Mary Lin- 
coln was the improvement in his fortunes. However, this 
may have had no other source than a distinguished lawyer 
whose keen eyes had been observing him since his first ap- 
pearance in politics. Stephen T. Logan "had that old-fash- 
ioned, lawyer-like morality which was keenly intolerant of 
any laxity or slovenliness of mind or character." He had, 
"as he deserved, the reputation of being the best nisi prius 
lawyer in the state.""* After watching the gifted but ill- 
prepared young attorney during several years, observing the 
power he had of simplification and convincingness in state- 
ment, taking the measure of his scrupulous honesty — these 
were ever Lincoln's strong cards as a lawyer — Logan made 
him the surprising offer of a junior partnership, which was 



46 LINCOLN 

instantly accepted. That was when his inner horizon was 
brightening, shortly before his marriage. A period of 
great mental energy followed, about the years 1842 and 
1843. Lincoln threw himself into the task of becoming a 
real lawyer under Logan's direction. However, his zeal 
flagged after a time, and when the partnership ended four 
years later he had to some extent fallen back into earlier, 
less strenuous habits. "He permitted his partner to do all 
the studying in the preparation of cases, while he himself 
trusted to his general knowledge of the law and the inspira- 
tion of the surroundings to overcome the judge or the 
jury."^ Though Lincoln was to undergo still another stim- 
ulation of the scholarly conscience before finding himself 
as a lawyer, the four years with Logan were his true student 
period. H the enthusiasm of the first year did not hold out, 
none the less he issued from that severe course of study a 
changed man, one who knew the difference between the 
learned lawyer and the unlearned. His own methods, to be 
sure, remained what they always continued to be, unsys- 
tematic, not to say slipshod. Even after he became presi- 
dent his lack of system was at times the despair of his sec- 
retaries.^ Hemdon, who succeeded Logan as his partner/ 
who admired both men, has a broad hint that Logan and 
Lincoln were not always an harmonious firm. A clash of 
political ambitions is part explanation; business methods 
another. "Logan was scrupulously exact and used extra- 
ordinary care in the preparation of papers. His words were 
well chosen, and his style of composition was stately and 
formal." He was industrious and very thrifty, while Lin- 
coln had "no money sense." It must have annoyed, if it 
did not exasperate his learned and formal partner, when 
Lincoln signed the firm name to such letters as this : "As 



PROSPERITY 47 

to real estate, we can not attend to it. We are not real 
estate agents, we are lawyers. We recommend that you 
give the charge of it to Mr. Isaac S. Britton, a trust- 
worthy man and one whom the Lord made on purpose for 
such business."® 

Superficial observers, then and afterward, drew the con- 
clusion that Lincoln was an idler. Long before, as a farm- 
hand, he had been called "bone idle."^ And of the outer 
Lincoln, except under stress of need, or in spurts of enthu- 
siasm, as in the earlier years with Logan, this reckless com- 
ment had its base of fact. The mighty energy that was in 
Lincoln, a tireless, inexhaustible energy, was inward, of the 
spirit; it did not always ramify into the sensibilities and 
inform his outer life. The connecting link of the two, his 
mere intelligence, though constantly obedient to demands of 
the outer life, was not susceptible of great strain except on 
demand of the spiritual vision. Hence his attitude toward 
the study of the law. It thrilled and entranced him, called 
into play all his powers — observation, reflection, intelligence 
— just so long as it appeared in his imagination a vast crea- 
tive effort of the spiritual powers, of humanity struggling 
perilously to see justice done upon earth, to let reason and 
the will of God prevail. It lost its hold upon him the in- 
stant it became a thing of technicalities, of mere learning, 
of statutory dialectics. 

The restless, inward Lincoln, dwelling deep among spir- 
itual shadows, found other outlets for his energy during 
these years when he was establishing himself at the bar. 
He continued to be a voracious reader. And his reading had 
taken a skeptical turn. Volney and Paine were now his 
intimates. The wave of ultra-rationalism that went over 
America in the 'forties did not spare many corners of the 



48 LINCOLN 

land. In Springfield, as in so many small towns, it had 
two effects : those who were not touched by it hardened into 
jealous watchfulness, and their religion naturally enough 
became fiercely combative ; those who responded to the new 
influence became a little affected philosophically, a bit effer- 
vescent. The young men, when of serious mind, and all 
those who were" re formers by temperament, tended to exalt 
the new, to patronize, if not to ridicule the old. At Spring- 
field, as at many another frontier town wracked by its 
growing pains, a Young Men's Lyceum confessed the world 
to be out of joint, and went to work glibly to set it right. 
Lincoln had contributed to its achievements. An oration 
of his on "Perpetuation of Our Free Institutions,"^'^ a mere 
rhetorical "stunt" in his worst vein now deservedly for- 
gotten, so delighted the young men that they asked to have 
it printed — quite as the same sort of young men to-day print 
essays on cubism, or examples of free verse read to poetry 
societies. Just what views he expressed on things in general 
among the young men and others; how far he aired his 
acquaintance with the skeptics, is imperfectly known.^^ 
However, a rumor got abroad that he was an "unbeliever," 
which was the easy label for any one who disagreed in 
religion with the person who applied it. The rumor was 
based in part on a passage in an address on temperance. 
In 1842, Lincoln, who had always been abstemious, joined 
that Washington Society which aimed at a reformation in 
the use of alcohol. His address was delivered at the request 
of the society. It contained this passage, very illuminating 
in its light upon the generosity, the real humility of the 
speaker, but scarcely tactful, considering the religious sus- 
ceptibility of the hour: "If they [the Christians] believe 
as they profess, that Omnipotence condescended to take on 



PROSPERITY 49 

himself the form of sinful man, and as such die an ignomin- 
ious death, surely they will not refuse submission to the 
infinitely lesser condescension for the temporal and perhaps 
eternal salvation of a large, erring and unfortunate class 
of their fellow creatures! Nor is the condescension very 
great. In my judgment such of us as have never fallen 
victims have been spared more from the absence of appe- 
tite than from any mental or moral superiority over those 
who have. Indeed, I believe, if we take habitual drunkards 
as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advan- 
tageous comparison with those of any other class. "^- How 
like that remark attributed to another great genius, one 
whom Lincoln in some respects resembled, the founder of 
Methodism, when he said of a passing drunkard : "There 
goes John Wesley, except for the Grace of God." But 
the frontier zealots of the 'forties were not of the Wesley 
type. The stories of Lincoln's skeptical interests, the insinu- 
ations which were promptly read into this temperance ad- 
dress, the fact that he was not a church-member, all these 
were seized upon by a good but very narrow man, a devoted, 
illiterate evangelist, Peter Cartwright. 

In 1846, this religious issue became a political issue. 
The Whigs nominated Lincoln for Congress. It was another 
instance of personal politics. The local Whig leaders had 
made some sort of private agreement, the details of which 
appear to be lost, but according to which Lincoln now be- 
came the inevitable candidate. ^^ He was nominated with- 
out opposition. The Democrats nominated Cartwright. 

Two charges were brought against Lincoln : that he was 
an infidel, and that he was — of all things in the world! — 
an aristocrat. On these charges the campaign was fought. 
The small matter of what he would do at Washington, or 



50 . LINCOLN 

would not do, was brushed aside. Personal politics with 
a veng-eance! The second charge Lincoln humorously and 
abundantly disproved; the first, he met with silence. 

Remembering Lincoln's unfailing truthfulness, remem- 
bering also his restless ambition, only one conclusion can 
be drawn from this silence. He could not categorically deny 
Cart Wright's accusation and at the same time satisfy his own 
unsparing conception of honesty. That there was no real 
truth in the charge of irreligion, the allusions in the Speed 
letters abundantly prove. The tone is too sincere to be 
doubted; nevertheless, they give no clue to his theology. 
And for men hke Cartwright, religion was tied up hand 
and foot in theology. Here was where Lincoln had parted 
company from his mother's world, and from its derivatives. 
Though he held tenaciously to all that was mystical in her 
bequest to him, he rejected early its formulations. The evi- 
dence of later years reaffirms this double fact. The sense of 
a spiritual world behind, beyond the world of phenomena, 
grew on him with the years ; the power to explain, to formu- 
late that world was denied him. He had no bent for dogma. 
Ethically, mystically, he was always a Christian; dogmati- 
cally he knew not what he was. Therefore, to the chal- 
lenge to prove himself a Christian on purely dogmatic 
grounds, he had no reply. To attempt to explain what 
separated him from his accusers, to show how from his 
point of view they were all Christians — although, remem- 
bering their point of view, he hesitated to say so — to draw 
the line between mysticism and emotionalism, would have 
resulted only in a worse confusion. Lincoln, the tentative 
mystic, the child of the starlit forest, was as inexplicable 
to Cartwright with his perfectly downright religion, his 
creed of heaven or hell — take your choice and be quick about 



PROSPERITY 51 

it ! — as was Lincoln the spiritual sufferer to New Salem, or 
Lincoln the political scientist to his friends in the Legis- 
lature. 

But he was not injured by his silence. The faith in him 
held by too many people was too well established. Then, 
as always thereafter, whatever he said or left unsaid, most 
thoughtful persons who came close to him sensed him as a 
religious man. That was enough for healthy, generous 
young Springfield. He and Cartwright might fight out their 
religious issues when they pleased, Abe should have his term 
in Congress. He was elected by a good majority. ^^ 



VI 



UNSATISFYING RECOGNITION 



Lincoln's career as a Congressman, 1847- 1849, was 
just what might have been expected — his career in the Ilh- 
nois Legislature on a larger scale. It was a pleasant, com- 
panionable, unfruitful episode, with no political significance. 
The leaders of the party did not take him seriously as a 
possible initiate to their ranks. His course was that of a 
loyal member of the Whig mass. In the party strategy, 
during the debates over the Mexican War and the Wilmot 
Proviso, he did his full party duty, voting just as the others 
did. Only once did he attempt anjrthing original — a bill to 
emancipate the slaves of the District, which was little more 
than a restatement of his protest of ten years before — and 
on this point Congress was as indifferent as the Legislature 
had been. The bill was denied a hearing and never came to 
a vote before the House.^ 

And yet Lincoln did not fail entirely to make an impres- 
sion at Washington. And again it was the Springfield expe- 
rience repeated. His companionableness was recognized, his 
modesty, his good nature ; above all, his story-telling. Men 
liked him. Plainly it was his humor, his droll ways, that 
won them; together with instant recognition of his sterling 
integrity. 

"During the Christmas holidays," says Ben Perley 
Poore, "Mr. Lincoln found his way into the small room 
used as the Post Office of the House, where a few genial 

52 



UNSATISFYING RECOGNITION 53 

reconteurs used to meet almost every morning after the 
mail had been distributed into the members' boxes, to 
exchange such new stories as any of them might have 
acquired since they had last met. After modestly stand- 
ing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded 
of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the 
champion story-teller of the Capital. His favorite seat 
was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his 
chair with his long legs reaching over to the chimney 
jamb."2 

In the words of another contemporary, "Congressman 
Lincoln was very fond of bowling and would frequently 
meet other members in a match game at the alley of 
James Casparus. . . . He was an awkward bowler, but 
played the game with great zest and spirit solely for exer- 
cise and amusement, and greatly to the enjoyment and enter- 
tainment of the other players, and by reason of his criticisms 
and funny illustrations. . . . When it was known that 
he was in the alley, there would assemble numbers of people 
to witness the fun which was anticipated by those who knew 
of his fund of anecdotes and jokes. When in the alley, 
surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners, he indulged with 
great freedom in the sport of narrative, some of which were 
very broad. "^ 

Once, at least, he entertained Congress with an exhibi- 
tion of his humor, and this, oddly enough, is almost the 
only display of it that has come down to us, first hand. 
Lincoln's humor has become a tradition. Like everything 
else in his outward life, it changed gradually with his slow 
devious evolution from the story-teller of Pigeon Creek to 
the author of the Gettysburg Oration. It is known chiefly 
through translation. The "Lincoln Stories" are stories 



54 LINCOLN 

some one else has told who may or may not have heard 
them told by Lincoln. They are like all translations, they 
express the translator not the original — final evidence that 
Lincoln's appeal as a humorist was in his manner, his 
method, not in his substance. "His laugh was striking. 
Such awkward gestures belonged to no other man. They 
attracted universal attention from the old sedate down to 
the schoolboy."^ He was a famous mimic. 

Lincoln is himself the authority that he did not invent 
his stories. He picked them up wherever he found them, 
and clothed them with the peculiar drollery of his telling. 
He was a wag rather than a wit. All that lives in the second- 
hand repetitions of his stories is the mere core, the original 
appropriated thing from which the inimitable decoration has 
fallen off. That is why the collections of his stories are 
such dreary reading, — like Carey's Dante, or Bryant's 
Homer. And strange to say, there is no humor in his letters. 
This man who was famous as a wag writes to his friends 
almost always in perfect seriousness, often sadly. The bit 
of humor that has been preserved in his one comic speech 
in Congress, — a burlesque of the Democratic candidate of 
1848, Lewis Cass, — shorn as it is of his manner, his tricks 
of speech and gesture, is hardly worth repeating.^ 

Lincoln was deeply humiliated by his failure to make a 
serious impression at Washington.^ His eyes opened in a 
startled realization that there were worlds he could not 
conquer. The Washington of the 'forties was far indeed 
from a great capital; it was as friendly to conventional 
types of politician as was Springfield or Vandalia. The 
man who could deal in ideas as political counters, the other 
man who knew the subtleties of the art of graft, both these 
were national as well as local figures. Personal politics 



UNSATISFYING RECOGNITION 55 

were also as vicious at Washington as anywhere ; neverthe- 
less, there was a difference, and in that difference lay the 
secret of Lincoln's failure. He was keen enough to grasp 
the difference, to perceive the clue to his failure. In a 
thousand ways, large and small, the difference came home 
to him. It may all be symbolized by a closing detail of his 
stay. An odd bit of incongruity was the inclusion of his 
name in the list of managers of the Inaugural Ball of 1849. 
Nothing of the sort had hitherto entered into his experience. 
As Mrs. Lincoln was not with him he joined "a small party 
of mutual friends" who attended the ball together. As one 
of them relates, "he was greatly interested in all that was 
to be seen and we did not take our departure until three or 
four o'clock in the morning."'^ What an ironic picture — 
this worthy provincial, the last word for awkwardness, 
socially as strange to such a scene as a little child, spending 
the whole night gazing intently at everything he could see, 
at the barbaric display of wealth, the sumptuous gowns, the 
brilliant uniforms, the distinguished foreigners, and the 
leaders of America, men like Webster and Clay, with their 
air of assured power, the men he had failed to impress. 
This was his valedictory at Washington. He went home 
and told Herndon that he had committed political suicide.^ 
He had met the world and the world was too strong for 
him. 

And yet, what was wrong? He had been popular at 
Washington, in the same way in which he had been popular 
at Springfield. Why had the same sort of success inspired 
him at Springfield and humiliated him at Washington ? The 
answer was in the difference between the two worlds. Com- 
panionableness, story-telling, at Springfield, led to influence ; 
at Washington it led only to applause. At Springfield it 



56 LINCOLN 

was a means; at Washington it was an end. The narrow 
circle gave the good fellow an opportunity to reveal at his 
leisure everything else that was in him; the larger circle 
ruthlessly put him in his place as a good fellow and nothing 
more. The truth was that in the Washington of the 'forties, 
neither the inner nor the outer Lincoln eould by itself find 
lodgment. Neither the lonely mystical thinker nor the 
captivating buffoon could do more than ripple its surface. 
As superficial as Springfield, it lacked Springfield's impul- 
sive generosity. To the long record of its obtuseness it had 
added another item. The gods had sent it a great man and 
it had no eyes to see. It was destined to repeat the perform- 
ance. 

And so Lincoln came home, disappointed, disillusioned. 
He had not succeeded in establishing the slightest claim, 
either upon the country or his party. Without such claim 
he had no ground for attempting reelection. The frivolity 
of the Whig machine in the Sangamon region was evinced 
vV by their rotation agreement. Out of such grossly personal 
politics Lincoln had gone to Washington; into this essen- 
tially corrupt system he relapsed. He faced, politically, a 
blank wall. And he had within him as yet, no conscious- 
ness of any power that might cleave the wall asunder. What 
was he to do next ? 

At this dangerous moment — so plainly the end of a 
chapter — he was offered the governorship of the new Terri- 
tory of Oregon. For the first time he found himself at a 
definite parting of the ways, where a sheer act of will was 
to decide things; where the pressure of circumstance was 
of secondary importance. 

In response to this crisis, an overlooked part of him 
appeared. The inheritance from his mother, from the forest, 



UNSATISFYING RECOGNITION 57 

had always been obvious. But, after all, he was the son not 
only of Nancy and of the lonely stars, but also of shifty, 
drifty Thomas the unstable. If it was not his paternal 
inheritance that revived in him at this moment of confessed 
failure, it was something of the same sort. Just as Thomas 
had always by way of extricating himself from a failure 
taken to the road, now Abraham, at a psychological crisis, 
felt the same wanderlust, and he threatened to go adrift. 
Some of his friends urged him to accept. "You will capture 
the new community," said they, "and when Oregon becomes 
a State, you will go to Washington as its first Senator." 
What a glorified application of the true Thomasian line of 
thought. Lincoln hesitated — hesitated — 

And then the forcible little lady who had married him 
put her foot down. Go out to that far-away backwoods, 
just when they were beginning to get on in the world; 
when real prosperity at Springfield was surely within their 
grasp; when they were at last becoming people of impor- 
tance, who should be able to keep their own carriage? Not 
much ! 

Her husband declined the appointment and resumed the 
practice of law in Springfield.® 



PROMISES 



VII 



THE SECOND START 



Stung by his failure at Washington, Lincoln for a 
time put his whole soul into the study of the law. He ex- 
plained his failure to himself as a lack of mental train- 
ing.^ There followed a repetition of his early years with 
Logan, but with very much more determination, and with 
more abiding result. 

In those days in Illinois, as once in England, the judges 
held court in a succession of towns which formed a cir- 
cuit. Judge and lawyers moved from town to town, ''rode 
the circuit" in company, — sometimes on horseback, some- 
times in their own vehicles, sometimes by stage. Among 
the reminiscences of Lincoln on the circuit, are his "poky" 
old horse and his "ramshackle" old buggy. Many and 
many a mile, round and round the Eighth Judicial Cir- 
cuit, he traveled in that humble style. What thoughts he 
brooded on in his lonely drives, he seldom told. During 
this period the cloud over his inner life is especially 
dense. The outer life, in a multitude of reminiscences, is 
well known. One of its salient details was the large pro- 
portion of time he devoted to study. 

"Frequently, I would go out on the circuit with him," 
writes Herndon. "We, usually, at the little country inn, 
occupied the same bed. In most cases, the beds were too 
short for him and his feet would hang over the footboard, 
thus exposing a limited expanse of shin bone. Placing his 

6i 



62 LINCOLN 

candle at the head of his bed he would read and stndy for 
hours. I have known him to stay in this position until 
two o'clock in the morning. Meanwhile, I and others 
who chanced to occupy the same room would be safely and 
soundly asleep. On the circuit, in this way, he studied 
Euclid until he could with ease demonstrate all the prop- 
ositions in the six books. How he cotild maintain his 
equilibrium or concentrate his thoughts on an abstract 
mathematical problem, while Davis, Logan, Swett, 
Edwards and I, so industriously and volubly filled the air 
with our interminable snoring, was a problem none of us 
could ever solve."- 

A well-worn copy of Shakespeare was also his con- 
stant companion. 

He rose rapidly in the profession ; and this in spite of 
his incorrigible lack of system. The mechanical side of 
the lawyer's task, now, as in the days with Logan, an- 
noyed him; he left the preparation of papers to his junior 
partner, as formerly he left it to his senior partner. But 
the situation had changed in a very important way. In 
Herndon, Lincoln had for a partner a talented young man 
who looked up to him, almost adored him, who was quite 
willing to be his man Friday. Fortunately, for all his 
adoration, Herndon had no desire to idealize his hero. He 
was not disturbed by his grotesque or absurd sides. 

"He was proverbially careless as to his habits," Hern- 
don writes. "In a letter to a fellow lawyer in another 
town, apologizing for his failure to answer sooner, he 
explains : 'First, I have been very busy in the United States 
Court; second, when I received the letter, I put it in my 
old hat, and buying a new one the next day, the old one was 
set aside, so the letter was lost sight of for the time.' This 



THE SECOND START 63 

hat of Lincoln's — a silk plug — was an extraordinary 
receptacle. It was his desk and his memorandum book. 
In it he carried his bank-book and the bulk of his letters. 
Whenever in his reading or researches, he wished to pre- 
serve an idea, he jotted it down on an envelope or stray 
piece of paper and placed it inside the lining; afterwards, 
when the memorandum was needed, there was only one 
place to look for it." Herndon makes no bones about con- 
fessing that their office was very dirty. So neglected was 
it that a young man of neat habits who entered the office 
as a law student under Lincoln could not refrain from 
cleaning it up, and the next visitor exclaimed in aston- 
ishment, "What's happened here!"^ 

"The office," says that same law student, "was on the 
second floor of a brick building on the public square oppo- 
site the courthouse. You went up a flight of stairs and 
then passed along a hallway to the rear office which was 
a medium sized room. There was one long table in the 
center of the room, and a shorter one running in the oppo- 
site direction forming a T and both were covered with 
green baize. There were two windows which looked into 
the back yard. In one corner was an old-fashioned sec- 
retary with pigeonholes and a drawer; and here Mr. Lin- 
coln and his partner kept their law papers. There was 
also a bookcase containing about two hundred volumes of 
law and miscellaneous books." The same authority adds, 
"There was no order in the office at all." Lincoln left all 
the money matters to Herndon. "He never entered an 
item on the account book. If a fee was paid to him and 
Herndon was not there, he would divide the money, wrap 
up one part in paper and place it in his partner's desk 
with the inscription, "Case of Roe versus Doe, Herndon's 



64 LINCOLN 

half." He had an odd habit of reading- aloud much to his 
partner's annoyance. He talked incessantly; a whole fore- 
noon would sometimes go by while Lincoln occupied the 
whole time telling stories.* 

On the circuit, his story-telling was an institution. 
Two other men, long since forgotten, vied with him as 
rival artists in humorous narrative. These three used to 
hold veritable tournaments. Herndon has seen "the little 
country tavern where these three were wont to meet after 
an adjournment of court, crowded almost to suffocation, 
with an audience of men who had gathered to witness the 
contest among the members of the strange triumvirate. The 
physicians of the town, all the lawyers, and not infre- 
quently a preacher, could be found in the crowd that filled 
the doors and window^s. The yarns they spun and the 
stories they told would not bear repetition here, but many 
of them had morals which, while exposing the weakness 
of mankind, stung like a whiplash. Some were, no doubt, 
a thousand years old, with just enough of verbal varnish 
and alterations of names and date to make them new and 
crisp. By virtue of the last named application, Lincoln 
was enabled to draw from Balzac a 'droll story' and locat- 
ing it 'in Egypt'* or in Indiana, pass it oft" for a purely 
original conception. ... I have seen Judge Treat, who 
W'-as the very impersonation of gravity itself, sit up till the 
last and laugh until, as he often expressed it, 'he almost 
shook his ribs loose.' The next day he would ascend the 
bench and listen to Lincoln in a murder trial with all the 
seeming severity of an English judge in wig and gown.""* 

Lincoln enjoyed the life on the circuit. It was not 
that he was always in a gale of spirits; a great deal of the 



* Southern Illinois. 



THE SECOND START 65 

time he brooded. His Homeric nonsense alternated with 
fits of gloom. In spite of his late hours, whether of study 
or of story-telling, he was an early riser. "He would sit 
by the fire having uncovered the coals, and muse and pon- 
der and soliloquize."^ Besides his favorite Shakespeare, 
he had a fondness for poetry of a very different sort — 
Byron, for example. And he never tired of a set of stan- 
zas in the minor key beginning: "Oh, why should the 
spirit of mortal be proud ?"'^ 

The hilarity of the circuit was not by any means the 
whole of its charm for him. Part of that charm must 
have been the contrast with his recent failure at Washing- 
ton. This world he could master. Here his humor in- 
creased his influence; and his influence grew rapidly. He 
was a favorite of judges, jury and the bar. Then, too, it 
was a man's world. Though Lincoln had a profound re- 
spect for women, he seems generally to have been ill at 
ease in their company. In what his friends would have 
called "general society" he did not shine. He was too 
awkward, too downright, too lacking in the niceties. At 
home, though he now owned a house and was making 
what seemed to him plenty of money, he was undoubtedly 
a trial to Mrs. Lincoln's sense of propriety. He could 
not rise with his wife, socially. He was still what he had 
become so long before, the favorite of all the men — good 
old Abe Lincoln that you could tie to though it rained 
cats and dogs. But as to the ladies! Fashionable people 
calling on Mrs. Lincoln, had been received by her hus- 
band in his shirt-sleeves, and he totally unabashed, as 
oblivious of discrepancy as if he were a nobleman and not 
a nobody.® The dreadful tradition persists that he had 
been known at table to put his own knife into the butter. 



e£ LINCOLN 

How safe to assume that many things were said cor^mis- 
erating poor Mrs. Lincoln who had a bear for a husband. 
And some people noticed that Lincoln did not come home 
at week-ends during term-time as often as he might. Per- 
haps it meant something; perhaps it did not. But there 
could be no doubt that the jovial itinerant life of the .' - 
cuit was the life for him — at least in the early 'fifties. That 
it was, and also that he was becoming known as a law- 
yer, is evinced by his refusal of a flattering invitation to 
enter a prosperous firm in Chicago. 

Out of all this came a deepening of his power to reach 
and impress men through words. The tournament of the 
story-tellers was a lawyers' tournament. The central fig- 
ure was reading, studying, thinking, as never in his life 
before. Though his fables remained as broad as ever, 
the merely boisterous character ceased to predominate. 
The ethical bent of his mind came to the surface. His 
friends were agreed that what they remembered chiefly 
of his stories was not the broad part of them, but the moral 
that was in them.'' And they had no squeamishness as 
critics of the art of fable-making. 

His ethical sense of things, his companionableness, the 
utterly non-censorious cast of his mind, his power to evolve 
yarns into parables — all these made him irresistible with 
a jury. It was a saying of his: "If I can divest this 
case of technicalities and swing it to the jury, I'll win 

But there was not a trace in him of that unscrupulous- 
ness usually attributed to the "jury lawyer." Few things 
show more plainly the central unmiovableness of his char- 
acter than his immunity to the lures of jury speaking. To 
use his power over an audience for his own enjoyment. 



THE SECOND START dj 

for an interested purpose, for any purpose except to afford 
pleasure, or to see justice done, was for him constitution- 
ally impossible. Such a performance was beyond the 
reach of his will. In a way, his nature, mysterious as it 
was, was also the last word for simplicity, a terrible simplic- 
ity. The exercise of his singular powers was irrevocably 
conditioned on his own faith in the moral justification of 
what he was doing. He had no patience with any concep- 
tion of the lawyer's function that did not make him the de- 
voted instrument of justice. For the law as a game, for 
legal strategy, he felt contempt. Never under any condi- 
tions would he attempt to get for a client more than he 
was convinced the client in justice ought to have. The 
first step in securing his services was always to persuade 
him that one's cause was just. He sometimes threw up a 
case in open court because the course of it had revealed 
deception on the part of the client. At times he expressed 
his disdain of the law's mere commercialism in a stinging 
irony. 

"In a closely contested civil suit," writes his associ- 
ate. Ward Hill Lamon, "Lincoln proved an account for 
his client, who was, though he did not know it at the time, 
a very slippery fellow. The opposing attorney then proved 
a receipt clearly covering the entire cause of action. By 
the time he was through Lincoln was missing. The court 
sent for him to the hotel. 'Tell the Judge,' said he, 'that 
I can't come ; my hands are dirty and I came over to clean 
them.' "" 

"Discourage litigation," he wrote. "Persuade your 
neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out 
to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser, in 
fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker, the 



68 LINCOLN 

lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. 
There will still be business enough."^^ 

He held his moral and professional views with the 
same inflexibility with which he held his political views. 
Once he had settled upon a conviction or an opinion, noth- 
ing could move him. He was singularly stubborn, and yet, 
in all the minor matters of life, in all his merely personal 
concerns, in everything except his basal ideas, he was pli- 
able to a degree. He could be talked into almost any con- 
cession of interest. He once told Herndon he thanked God 
that he had not been born a woman because he found it 
so hard to refuse any request made of him. His outer 
easiness, his lack of self-assertion, — as most people under- 
stand self-assertion, — persist in an amusing group of anec- 
dotes of the circuit. Though he was a favorite with the 
company at every tavern, those little demagogues, the tav- 
ern-keepers, quickly found out that he could be safely put 
upon. In the minute but important favoritism of tavern 
life, in the choice of rooms, in the assignment of seats at 
table, in the distribution of delicacies, easy-going Lincoln 
was ever the first one to be ignored. "He never com- 
plained of the food, bed, or lodgings," says a judge of 
the circuit, David Davis. "If every other fellow 
grumbled at the bill of fare which greeted us at many of 
the dingy taverns, Lincoln said ncthing."^^ 

But his complacency was of the surface only. His 
ideas were his own. He held to them with dogged te- 
nacity. Herndon was merely the first of several who dis- 
cerned on close familiarity Lincoln's inward inflexibility. 
'T was never conscious," he writes, "of having made 
much of an impression on Mr. Lincoln, nor do I believe I 
ever changed his views. I will go further and say that 



THE SECOND START 69 

from the profound nature of his conckisions and the la- 
bored method by which he arrived at them, no man is 
entitled to the credit of having either changed or greatly 
modified them."^* 

In these years of the early 'fifties, Herndon had much 
occasion to test his partner's indifference to other men's 
views, his tenacious adherence to his own. Herndon had 
become an Abolitionist. He labored to convert Lincoln; 
but it was a lost labor. The Sphinx in a glimmer of sun- 
shine was as unassailable as the cheery, fable-loving, in- 
flexible Lincoln. The younger man would work himself 
up, and, flushed with ardor, warn Lincoln against his ap- 
parent conservatism when the needs of the hour were so 
great; but his only answer would be, "Billy, you are too 
rampant and spontaneous."^^ 

Nothing could move him from his fixed conviction 
that the temper of Abolitionism made it pernicious. He 
persisted in classifying it with slavery, — both of equal 
danger to free institutions. He took occasion to reassert 
this belief in the one important utterance of a political na- 
ture that commemorates this period. An oration on the 
death of Henry Clay, contains the sentence: "Cast into 
life when slavery was already widely spread and deeply 
sealed, he did not perceive, as I think no wise man has 
perceived, how it could be at once eradicated without pro- 
ducing a greater evil even to the cause of human liberty 
itself."i6 

It will be remembered that the Abolitionists were never 
strongly national in sentiment. In certain respects they 
remind one of the extreme "internationals" of to-day. 
Their allegiance was not first of all to society, nor to 
governments, but to abstract ideas. For all such attitudes 



70 LINCOLN 

in political science, Lincoln had an instinctive aversion. 
He was permeated always, by his sense of the community, 
of the obligation to work in terms of the community. Even 
the prejudices, the shortsightedness of the community 
were things to be considered, to be dealt with tenderly. 
Hence his unwillingness to force reforms upon a com- 
munity not ripe to receive them. In one of his greatest 
speeches occurs the dictum: "A universal feeling whether 
well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded."^"^ 
Anticipating such ideas, he made in his Clay oration, a 
startling denunciation of both the extreme factions of 
1852: 

"Those (Abolitionists) who would shiver into frag- 
ments the union of these States, tear to tatters its now 
venerated Constitution, and even burn the last copy of the 
Bible rather than slavery should continue a single hour; 
together with all their more halting sympathizers, have 
received and are receiving their just execration; and the 
name and opinion and influence of Mr. Clay are fully and, 
as I trust, effectually and enduringly arrayed against 
them. But I would also if I could, array his name, opinion 
and influence against the opposite extreme, against a few, 
but increasing number of men who, for the sake of per- 
petuating slaver}', are beginning to assail and ridicule the 
white man's charter of freedom, the declaration that 'all 
men are created free and equal.' "^^ 

In another passage he stated what he conceived to be 
thft central inspiration of Clay. Had he been thinking of 
himself, he could not have foreshadowed more exactly the 
basal drift of all his future as a statesman: 

"He loved his country partly because it was his own 



THE SECOND START 71 

countn-, and mostly because it was a free country; and he 
burned "with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity, and 
glory, because he saw in such the advancement, prosperity 
and gflory of human liberty, human right and human 
nature."^* 



VIII 



A RETURN TO POLITICS 



Meanwhile, great things were coming forward at 
Washington. They centered about a remarkable man 
with whom Lincoln had hitherto formed a curious paral- 
lel, by whom hitherto he had been completely overshad- 
owed. Stephen Arnold Douglas was prosecuting attor- 
ney at Springfield when Lincoln began the practice of 
law. They were in the Legislature together. Both courted 
Mary Todd. Soon afterward, Douglas had distanced his 
rival. When Lincoln went to the House of Representa- 
tives as a Whig, Douglas went to the Senate as a Demo- 
crat. While Lincoln was failing at Washington, Douglas 
was building a national reputation. In the hubbub that 
followed the Compromise of 1850, vvhile Lincoln, aban- 
doning politics, immersed himself in the law, Douglas ren- 
dered a service to the country by defeating a movement 
in Illinois to reject the Compromise. When the Demo- 
cratic National Convention assembled in 1852, he was 
sufficiently prominent to obtain a considerable vote for the 
presidential nomination. 

The dramatic contrast of these two began with their 
physical appearance. Douglas was so small that he had 
been known to sit on a friend's knee while arguing politics. 
But his energy of mind, his indomitable force of charac- 
ter, made up for his tiny proportions. "The Little Giant" 
was a term of endeannent applied to him by his follow- 

72 



A RETURN TO POLITICS 73 

ers. The mental contrast was equally marked. Scarcely 
a quality in Lincoln that was not reversed in Douglas — 
deliberation, gradualness, introspection, tenacity, were the 
characteristics of Lincoln's mind. The mind of Douglas 
was first of all facile. He was extraordinarily quick. In 
political strategy he could sense a new situation, wheel to 
meet it, throw overboard well-established plans, devise 
new ones, all in the twinkle of an eye. People who could 
not understand such rapidity of judgment pronounced him 
insincere, or at least, an opportunist. That he did not 
have the deep flexibility of Lincoln may be assumed ; that 
his convictions, such as they were, did not have an ethical 
cast may be safely asserted. Nevertheless, he was a great 
force, an immense human power, that did not change its 
course without good reason of its own sort. Far more 
than a mere opportunist. Politically, he summed up a 
change that was coming over the Democratic party. Janus- 
like, he had two faces, one for his constituents, one for 
his colleagues. To the voter he was still a Jeffersonian, 
with whom the old phraseology of the party, liberty, equal- 
ity, and fraternity, were still the catch-words. To his asso- 
ciates in the Senate he was essentially an aristocrat, labor- 
ing to advance interests that were careless of the rights of 
man. A later age has accused the Senate of the United 
States of being the citadel of Big Business. Waiving the 
latter view, the historian may assert that something sug- 
gestive of Big Business appeared in our politics in the 
'fifties, and was promptly made at home in the Senate. 
Perhaps its first definite manifestation was a new activ- 
ity on the part of the great slave-holders. To invoke 
again the classifications of later points of view, certain of 
our historians to-day think they can see in the 'fifties a 



74 LINCOLN 

virtual slavery trust, a combine of slave interests con- 
trolled by the magnates of the institution, and having as 
real, though informal, an existence as has the Steel Trust 
or the Beef Trust in our own time. This powerful inter- 
est allied itself with the capitalists of the Northeast. In 
modern phraseology, they aimed to "finance" .he slave in- 
terest from New York. And for a time the alliance suc- 
ceeded in doing this. The South went entirely upon 
credit. It bought and borrowed heavily in the East. New 
York furnislied the money. 

Had there been nothing further to consider, the inva- 
sion of the Senate by Big Business in the 'fifties might 
not have taken place. But there was something else. 
Slavery's system of agriculture w^as excessively wasteful. 
To be highly profitable it required virgin soil, and the 
financial alHance demanded high profits. Early in the 'fif- 
ties, the problem of Big Business w^as the acquisition of 
fresh soil for slavery. The problem entered politics with 
the question how could this be brought about without ap- 
pearing to contradict democracy? The West also had its 
incipient Big Business. It hinged upon railways. Now 
that California had been acquired, with a steady stream 
of migration w-estward, with all America dazzled more or 
less by gold-mines and Pacific trade, a transcontinental 
railway was a Western dream. But what course should 
it take, what favored regions were to become its immedi- 
ate beneficiaries? Here was a chance for great jockeying 
among business interests in Congress, for slave-holders, 
money-lenders, railway promoters to manipulate deals to 
their hearts' content. They had been doing so amid a high 
complication of squabbling, while Douglas was traveling 
in Europe during 1853. When he returned late in the 



A RETURN TO POLITICS 75 

year, the unity of the Democratic machine in Congress 
was endangered by these disputes. Douglas at once at- 
tacked the problem of party harmony. He threw himself 
into the task with all his characteristic quickness, all his 
energy and resourcefulness. 

By this time the problem contained five distinct fac- 
tors : The upper Northeast wanted a railroad starting at 
Chicago, The Central West wanted a road from St. 
Louis. The Southwest wanted a road from New Orleans, 
or at least, the frustration of the two Northern schemes. 
Big Business wanted new soil for slavery. The Compro- 
mise of 1850 stood in the way of the extension of slave 
territory. 

If Douglas had had any serious convictions opposed to 
slavery the last of the five factors would have brought 
him to a standstill. Fortunately for him as a party strate- 
gist, he was indifferent. Then, too, he firmly believed that 
slavery could never thrive in the West because of climatic 
conditions. "Man might propose, but physical geography 
would dispose."^ On both counts it seemed to him imma- 
terial what concessions be made to slavery extension 
northwestward. Therefore, he dismissed this considera- 
tion and applied himself to the harmonization of the four 
business factors involved. The result was a famous com- 
promise inside a party. His Kansas-Nebraska Bill created 
two new territories, one lying westward from Chicago; 
one lying westward from St. Louis. It also repealed the 
Missouri Compromise and gave the inhabitants of each 
territory the right to decide for themselves whether or not 
slavery should be permitted in their midst. That is to 
say, both to the railway promoter and the slavery finan- 
cier, it extended equal governmental protection, but it 



y6 LINCOLN 

promised favors to none, and left each faction to rise or 
fall in the free competition of private enterprise. Why 
was not this, remembering Douglas's assumptions, a mas- 
ter-stroke ? 

He had expected, of course, denunciation by the Abo- 
litionists. He considered it immaterial. But he was not 
in the least prepared for what happened. A storm burst. 
It was fiercest in his own State. "Traitor," "Arnold," 
"Judas," were the pleasant epithets fired at him in a be- 
wildering fusillade. He could not understand it. Some- 
thing other than mere Abolitionism had been aroused by 
his great stroke. But what was it? Why did men who 
were not Abolitionists raise a hue and cry? Especially, 
why did many Democrats do so? Amazed, puzzled, but 
as always furiously valiant, Douglas hurried home to 
join battle with his assailants. He entered on a campaign 
of speech-making. On October 3, 1854, he spoke at Spring- 
field. His enemies, looking about for the strongest popu- 
lar speaker they could find, chose Lincoln. The next day 
he replied to Douglas. 

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill had not affected any change 
in Lincoln's thinking. His steady, consistent development 
as a political thinker had gone on chiefly in silence ever 
since his Protest seventeen years before. He was still in- 
tolerant of Abolitionism, still resolved to leave slavery to 
die a natural death In the States where it was established. 
He defended the measure which most offended the Aboli- 
tionists, the Fugitive Slave Law. He had appeared as 
counsel for a man who claimed a runaway slave as his 
property.^ None the less, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had 
brought him to his feet, wheeled him back from law into 
politics, begun a new chapter. The springs of action in 



A RETURN TO POLITICS ^J 

his case were the factor which Douglas had overlooked, 
which in all his calculations he had failed to take into 
account, which was destined to destroy him. 

Lincoln, no less than Douglas, had sensed the fact that 
money was becoming a power in American politics. He 
saw that money and slavery tended to become allies with 
the inevitable result of a shift of gravity in the American 
social system. "Humanity" had once been the American 
shibboleth; it was giving place to a new shibboleth — "pros- 
perity." And the people who were to control and admin- 
ister prosperity were the rich. The rights of man were 
being superseded by the rights of wealth. Because of its 
place in this new coalition of non-democratic influences, 
slavery, to Lincoln's mind, was assuming a new role, "be- 
ginning," as he had said, in the Clay oration, "to assail 
and ridicule the w^hite man's charter of freedom, the dec- 
laration that 'all men are created free and equal.' " 

That phrase, "the white man's charter of freedom," 
had become Lincoln's shibboleth. Various utterances and 
written fragments of the summer of 1854, reveal the in- 
tensity of his preoccupation. 

"Equality in society beats inequality, whether the latter 
be of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery 
sort."^ 

"If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may of 
right enslave B, why may not B snatch the same argument 
and prove equally that he may enslave A? You say A Is 
white and B is black. It is color then; the lighter having 
the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule 
you are to be slave to the first man you meet wath a fairer 
skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly? 
You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the 



7^ LINCOLN 

blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave them? 
Take care again. By this rule you are to be slave to the 
first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own. 
But, you say, it is a question of interest, and if you make 
it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. 
Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the 
right to enslave you."* 

Speaking of slavery to a fellow lawyer, he said : "It 
is the most glittering, ostentatious, and displaying prop- 
erty in the world; and now, if a young man goes court- 
ing, the only inquiry is how many negroes he or his lady 
love owns. The love of slave property is swallowing up 
every other mercenery possession. Its ownership betok- 
ened not only the possession of wealth, but indicated the 
gentleman of leisure who was above and scorned labor."^ 

It was because of these views, because he saw slavery 
allying itself with the spread of plutocratic ideals, that 
Lincoln entered the battle to prevent its extension. He 
did so in his usual cool, determined way. 

Though his first reply to Douglas w^as not recorded, 
his second, made at Peoria twelve days later, still exists.^ 
It is a landmark in his career. It sums up all his long, 
slow development in political science, lays the abiding foun- 
dation of everything he thought thereafter. In this great 
speech, the end of his novitiate, he rings the changes on 
the white man's charter of freedom. He argues that the 
extension of slavery tends to discredit republican institu- 
tions, and to disappoint "the Liberal party throughout the 
world." The heart of his argument is : 

"Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska or other new 
Territories is not a matter of exclusive concern to the 
people who may go there. The whole nation is interested 



A RETURN TO POLITICS 79 

that the best use shall be made of these Territories. We 
want them for homes for free white people. This they 
can not be to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be 
planted within them. Slave States are places for poor 
white people to remove from, not remove to. New Free 
States are the places for poor people to go to and better their 
condition. For this use the nation needs these Territories." 

The speech was a masterpiece of simplicity, of lucidity. 
It showed the great jury lawyer at his best. Its temper 
was as admirable as its logic; not a touch of anger nor of 
vituperation. 

"I have no prejudice against the Southern people," 
said he. "They are just what w^e w^ould be in their situation. 
If slavery did not exist among them, they would not intro- 
duce It. If it did now exist among us, we should not in- 
stantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and 
South. . . . 

"When Southern people tell us that they are no more 
responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I 
acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institu- 
tion exists and that it is very difficult to get rid of in any 
satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the say- 
ing. I surely wall not blame them for not doing what I 
should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power 
were given me, I should not know what to do as to the 
existing institution." 

His instinctive aversion to fanaticism found expression 
in a plea for the golden mean in politics. 

"Some men, mostly WTiigs, who condemn the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise, nevertheless hesitate to go 
for its restoration lest they be thrown in company wath 
the Abolitionists. Will they allow me as an old Whig, to 



8o LINCOLN 

tell them good humoredly that I think this is very sillv. 
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him 
while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong. 
Stand with the Abolitionist in restoring the Missouri 
Compromise, and stand against him when he attempts to 
repeal the Fugitive Slave Law. In the latter case you 
stand with the Southern dis-unionist. What of that? 
You are still right. In both cases you are right. In both 
cases you expose the dangerous extremes. In both you 
stand on middle ground and hold the ship level and steady. 
In both vou are national, and nothing less than national. 
"This is the good old \\'hig ground. To desert such ground 
because of any company is to be less than a Whig — less 
than a man — less than an American." 

These two speeches against Douglas made an immense 
impression. Byron-like, Lincoln waked up and found 
himself famous. Thereupon, his ambition revived. A 
Senator was to be chosen that autumn. Why might not 
this be the opportunity to retrieve his failure in Congress? 
Shortly after the Peoria speech, he was sending out notes 
like this to prominent politicians : 

"Dear Sir: You used to express a good deal of par- 
tiality for me, and if you are still so, now is the time. 
Some friends here are really for me for the United States 
Senate, and I shotild be very grateful if you could make a 
mark for me among your members [of the Legislature].'"'' 

When the Legislature assembled, it was foimd to com- 
prise four groups : the out-and-out Democrats who would 
stand by Douglas through thick and thin, and vote only 
for his nom.inee; the bolting Democrats who would not 
vote for a Douglas man, but whose party rancor was so 
great that they would throw their votes away rather than 



A RETURN TO POLITICS 8i 

give them to a Whig; such enemies of Douglas as were 
wilHng to vote for a Whig; the remainder. 

The Democrats supported Governor Matteson; the can- 
didate of the second group was Lyman Trumbull; the 
Whigs supported Lincoln. After nine exciting ballots, 
Matteson had forty-seven votes, Trumbull thirty-five, Lin- 
coln fifteen. As the bolting Democrats were beyond com- 
promise, Lincoln determined to sacrifice himself in order 
to defeat Matteson. Though the fifteen protested against 
deserting him, he required them to do so. On the tenth 
ballot, they transferred their votes to Trumbull and he 
was elected.^ 

Douglas had met his first important defeat. His policy 
had been repudiated in his own State. And it was Lin- 
coln who had formulated the argument against him, who 
had held the balance of power, and had turned the scale. 



IX 



THE LITERARY STATESMAN 



Lincoln had found at last a mode and an opportunity 
for concentrating all his powers in a way that could have 
results. He had discovered himself as a man of letters. 
The great speeches of 1854 were not different in a way 
from the previous speeches that were without results. And 
yet they were wholly different. Just as Lincoln's version 
of an old tale made of that tale a new thing, so Lincoln's 
version of an argument made of it a different thing from 
other men's versions. The oratory of 1854 was not state- 
craft in any ordinary sense. It was art. Lincoln the artist, 
who had slowly developed a great literary faculty, had 
chanced after so many rebuffs on good fortune. His cause 
stood in urgent need of just what he could give. It v/as 
one of those moments when a new political force, having 
not as yet any opening for action, finds salvation in the 
phrase-maker, in the literary artist who can embod}^ it in 
words. 

During the next five years and more, Lincoln was the 
recognized offset to Douglas. His fame spread from Illi- 
nois in both directions. He was called to Iowa and to Ohio 
as the advocate of all advocates who could undo the effect 
of Douglas, His fame traveled eastward. The culmination 
of the period of literary leadership was his famous speech 
at Cooper Union in February, i860. 



THE LITERARY STATESMAN 83 

It was inevitable that he should go along with the anti- 
slavery coalition which adopted the name of the Repub- 
lican party. But his natural deliberation kept him from 
being one of its founders. An attempt of its founders to 
appropriate him after the triumph at Springfield, in October, 
1854, met with a rebuff.^ Nearly a year and a half went by 
before he affiliated himself with the new party. But once 
having made up his mind, he went forward whole-heartedly. 
At the State Convention of Illinois Republicans in 1856 he 
made a speech that has not been recorded but which is a 
tradition for moving oratory. That same year a consider- 
able number of votes were cast for Lincoln for Vice-Presi- 
dent in the Republican National Convention. 

But all these were mere details. The great event of the 
years between 1854 and i860 was his contest with Douglas. 
It was a battle of wit, a great literary duel. Fortunately 
for Lincoln, his part was played altogether on his own soil, 
under conditions in which he was entirely at his ease, where 
nothing conspired with his enemy to embarrass him. 

Douglas had a far more difficult task. Unforeseen 
complications rapidly forced him to change his policy, to 
meet desertion and betrayal in his own ranks. These were 
terrible years when fierce events followed one another in 
quick succession — the rush of both slave-holders and aboli- 
tionists into Kansas; the cruel war along the Wakarusa 
River; the sack of Lawrence by the pro-slavery party; the 
massacre by John Brown at Pottawatomie; the diatribes 
of Sumner in the Senate; the assault on Sumner by Brooks. 
In the midst of this carnival of ferocity came the Dred 
Scott decision, cutting under the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 
denying to the people of a Territory the right to legislate 
on slavery, and giving to all slave-holders the right to settle 



84 LINCOLN 

with their slaves anywhere they pleased outside a Free State. 
This famous decision repudiated Douglas's policy of leaving 
all such questions to local autonomy and to private enter- 
prise. For a time Douglas made no move to save his policy. 
But when President Buchanan decided to throw the influ- 
ence of the Administration on the side of the pro-slavery 
party in Kansas, Douglas was up in arms. When it was 
proposed to admit Kansas with a constitution favoring 
slavery, but which had not received the votes of a majority 
of the inhabitants, Douglas voted with the Republicans to 
defeat admission. Whereupon the Democratic party ma- 
chine and the Administration turned upon him without 
mercy. Fie stood alone in a circle of enemies. At no 
other time did he show so many of the qualities of a great 
leader. Battling with Lincoln in the popular forum on the 
one hand, he was meeting daily on the other assaults by a 
crowd of brilliant opponents in Congress. At the same time 
he was playing a consummate game of political strategy, 
struggling against immense odds to recover his hold on Illi- 
nois. The crisis would come in 1858 when he would have 
to go before the Legislature for reelection. He knew well 
enough who his opponent would be. At every turn there 
fell across his path the shadow of a cool sinister figure, 
his relentless enemy. It was Lincoln. On the struggle 
with Lincoln his whole battle turned. 

Abandoned by his former allies, his one hope was the 
retention of his constituency. To discredit Lincoln, to twist 
and discredit all his arguments, was for Douglas a matter 
of life and death. He struck frequently with great force, 
but sometimes with more fury than wisdom. Many a time 
the unruffled coolness of Lincoln brought to nothing what 
was meant for a deadly thrust. Douglas took counsel of 



THE LITERARY STATESMAN 85 

despair and tried to show that Lincoln was preaching the 
amalgamation of the white and black races. "I protest," 
Lincoln replied, "against the counterfeit logic which says 
that because I do not want a black woman for a slave, I 
must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her 
for either. I can just leave her alone. In some respects 
she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to 
eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking 
leave of any one else, she is my equal and the equal of all 
others."- Any false move made by Douglas, any rash asser- 
tion, was sure to be seized upon by that watchful enemy in 
Illinois. In attempting to defend himself on two fronts at 
once, defying both the Republicans and the Democratic ma- 
chine, Douglas made his reckless declaration that all he 
wanted was a fair vote by the people of Kansas; that for 
himself he did not care how they settled the matter, whether 
slavery was voted up or voted down. With relentless skill, 
Lincoln developed the implications of this admission, draw- 
ing forth from its confessed indifference to the existence of 
slavery, a chain of conclusions that extended link by link 
to a belief in reopening the African slave trade. This was 
done in his speech accepting the Republican nomination for 
the Senate. In the same speech he restated his general posi- 
tion in half a dozen sentences that became, at once a classic 
statement for the whole Republican party :i"A house divided 
against itself can not stand. I believe this"* government can 
not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house 
to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will 
become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it 
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in 



86 LINCOLN 

the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push 
it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, 
old as well as new, North as well as South."^ 

The great duel was rapidly approaching its climax. 
What was in reality no more than the last round has appro- 
priated a label that ought to have a wider meaning and is 
known as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The two candi- 
dates made a joint tour of the State, debating their policies 
in public at various places during the summer and autumn 
of 1858. 

Properly considered, these famous speeches closed Lin- 
coln's life as an orator. The Cooper Union speech was an 
isolated aftermath in alien conditions, a set performance 
not quite in his true vein. His brief addresses of the later 
years were incidental; they had no combative element. 
Never again was he to attempt to sway an audience for an 
immediate stake through the use of the spoken word. "A 
brief description of Mr. Lincoln's appearance on the stump 
and of his manner when speaking," as Herndon aptly re- 
marks, "may not be without interest. When standing erect, 
he was six feet four inches high. He was lean in flesh and 
ungainly in figure. Aside from his sad, pained look, due to 
habitual melancholy, his face had no characteristic or fixed 
expression. He was thin through the chest and hence slight- 
ly stoop-shouldered. ... At first he was very awkward 
and it seemed a real labor to adjust himself to his surround- 
ings. He struggled for a time under a feeling of apparent 
diffidence and sensitiveness, and these only added to his 
awkwardness. . . . When he began speaking his voice 
v/as shrill, piping and unpleasant. His manner, his attitude, 
his dark yellow face, wrinkled and dry, his oddity of pose, 
his diffident movements ; everything seemed to be against him, 



THE LITERARY STATESMAN 87 

but only for a short time. ... As he proceeded, he 
became somewhat more animated. ... He did not 
gesticulate as much with his hands as with his head. He 
used the latter frequently, throwing it with him, this way 
and that. ... He never sawed the air nor rent space 
into tatters and rags, as some orators do. He never acted 
for stage effect. He was cool, considerate, reflective— m 
time, self-possessed and self-rehant. . . . As he moved 
along in his speech he became freer and less uneasy in his 
movements ; to that extent he was graceful. He had a per- 
fect naturalness, a strong individuality, and to that extent 
he was dignified. . . . He spoke with effectiveness and 
to move the judgment as well as the emotion of men. There 
was a world of meaning and emphasis in the long, bony 
finger of the right hand as he dotted the ideas on the minds 
of his hearers. ... He always stood squarely on his 
feet. ... He neither touched nor leaned on anything 
for support. He never ranted, never walked backward and 
forward on the platform. ... As he proceeded with 
his speech, the exercise of his vocal organs altered some- 
what the pitch of his voice. It lost in a measure its former 
acute and shrilling pitch and mellowed into a more har- 
monious and pleasant sound. His form expanded, and not- 
withstanding the sunken breast, he rose up a splendid and 
imposing figure. ... His little gray eyes flashed in a 
face aglow with the fire of his profound thoughts; and 
his uneasy movements and diffident manner sunk themselves 
beneath the wave of righteous indignation that came sweep- 
ing over him."* j 

A wonderful dramatic contrast were these two men, 
each in his way so masterful, as they appeared in the famous 
debates. By good fortune we have a portrait of Douglas 



88 LINCOLN 

the orator, from the pen of Mrs. Stowe, who had observed 
him with reluctant admiration from the gallery of the 
Senate, "This Douglas is the very ideal of vitality. Short, 
broad, thick-set, every inch of him has its own alertness and 
motion. He has a good head, thick black hair, heavy black 
brows, and a keen face. His figure would be an unfortunate 
one were it not for the animation that constantly pervades 
it. As it is it rather gives poignancy to his peculiar appear- 
ance ; he has a small handsome hand, moreover, and a grace- 
ful as well as forcible mode of using it. . . . He has two 
requisites of a debater, a melodious voice and clear, sharply 
defined enunciation. His forte in debating is his power of 
mystifying the point. With the most offhand assured airs 
in the world, and a certain appearance of honest superiority, 
like one who has a regard for you and wishes to set you 
right on one or two little matters, he proceeds to set up 
some point which is not that in question, but only a family 
connection of it, and this point he attacks with the very 
best of logic and language ; he charges upon it, horse and 
foot, runs it down, tramples it in the dust, and then turns 
upon you with 'See, there is your argument. Did I not 
tell you so? You see it is all stuff.' And if you have 
allowed yourself to be so dazzled by his quickness as to 
forget that the routed point is not, after all, the one in 
question, you suppose all is over with it. Moreover, he 
contrives to mingle up so many stinging allusions, so many 
piquant personalities, that by the time he has done his mysti- 
fication, a dozen others are ready and burning to spring on 
their feet to repel some direct or indirect attack all equally 
wide of the point." 

The mode of travel of the two contestants heightened 
the contrast. George B. McClellan, a young engineer offi- 



THE LITERARY STATESMAN 89 

cer who had recently resigned from the army and was now 
general superintendent of the Illinois Central Railroad, gave 
Douglas his private car and a special train. Lincoln 
traveled any way he could — in ordinary passenger trains, 
or even in the caboose of a freight train. A curious sym- 
bolization of Lincoln's belief that the real conflict was 
between the plain people and organized money ! 

The debates did not develop new ideas. It was a literary 
duel, each leader aiming to restate himself in the most 
telling, popular way. For once that superficial definition 
of art applied: "What oft was thought but ne'er so well 
expressed." Nevertheless the debates contained an incident 
that helped to make history. Though Douglas was at war 
with the Administration, it was not certain that the quarrel 
might not be made up. There was no other leader who 
would be so formidable at the head of a reunited Democratic 
party. Lincoln pondered the question, how could the rift 
between Douglas and the Democratic machine be made 
irrevocable? And now a new phase of Lincoln appeared. 
It was the political strategist. He saw that if he would 
disregard his own chance of election — as he had done from 
a simpler motive four years before — he could drive Doug- 
las into a dilemma from which there was no real escape. He 
confided his purpose to his friends ; they urged him not to 
do it. But he had made up his mind as he generally did, 
without consultation, in the silence of his own thoughts, 
and once having made it up, he was inflexible. 

At Freeport, Lincoln made the move which probably 
lost him the Senatorship. He asked a question which if 
Douglas answered it one way would enable him to recover 
the favor of Illinois but Avould lose him forever the favor 
of the slave-holders; but which, if he answered it another 



90 LINCOLN 

way might enable him to make his peace at Washington 
but would certainly lose him Illinois. The question was: 
"Can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful 
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, 
exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of 
a State Constitution?"^ In other words, is the Dred Scott 
decision good law? Is it true that a slave-holder can take 
his slaves into Kansas if the people of Kansas want to 
keep him out? 

Douglas saw the trap. With his instantaneous facility 
he tried to cloud the issue and extricate himself through 
evasion in the very manner Mrs. Stowe has described. 
While dodging a denial of the court's authority, he insisted 
that his doctrine of local autonomy was still secure because 
through police regulation the local legislature could foster 
or strangle slavery, just as they pleased, no matter "what 
way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the 
abstract question whether slavery may or may not g'O' into 
a Territory under the Constitution." 

As Lincoln's friends had foreseen, this matchless per- 
formance of carrying water on both shoulders caught the 
popular fancy; Douglas was reelected to the Senate. As 
Lincoln had foreseen, it killed him as a Democratic leader; 
it prevented the reunion of the Democratic party. The re- 
sult appeared in i860 when the Republicans, though still 
a minority party, carried the day because of the bitter 
divisions among the Democrats. That was what Lincoln 
foresaw when he said to his fearful friends while they 
argued in vain to prevent his asking the question at Free- 
port. "I am killing larger game; the great battle of i860 
is worth a thousand of this senatorial race."^ 



X 



THE DARK HORSE 



One of the most curious things in Lincoln is the way 
his confidence in himself came and went. He had none of 
Douglas's unwavering self-reliance. Before the end, to be 
sure, he attained a type of self-reliance, higher and more 
imperturbable. But this was not the fruit of a steadfast 
unfolding. Rather, he was like a tree with its alternating 
periods of growth and pause, now richly in leaf, now dor- 
mant. Equally applicable is the other familiar image of 
the successive waves. 

The clue seems to have been, in part at least, a matter 
of vitality. Just as Douglas emanated vitality — so much so 
that his aura filled the whole Senate chamber and forced 
an unwilling response in the gifted but hostile woman who 
watched him from the gallery — Lincoln, conversely, made 
no such overpowering impression. His observers, however 
much they have to say about his humor, his seasons of 
Shakespearian mirth, never forget their impression that at 
heart he is sad. His fondness for poetry in the minor key 
has become a byword, especially the line "Oh, why should 
the spirit of mortal be proud." 

It is impossible to discover any law governing the suc- 
cession of his lapses in self-reliance. But they may be 
related very plausibly to his sense of failure or at least to 
his sense of futility. He was one of those intensely sensi- 
tive natures to whom the futilities of this world are its most 

91 



92 LINCOLN 

discouraging feature. Whenever such ideas were brought 
home to him his energy flagged; his vitahty, never high, 
sank. He was prone to turn away from the outward Hfe 
to lose himself in the inner. All this is part of the phe- 
nomena which Herndon perceived more clearly than he 
comprehended it, which led him to call Lincoln a fatalist. 

A humbler but perhaps more accurate explanation is the 
reminder that he was son to Thomas the unstable. What 
happened in Lincoln's mind when he returned defeated from 
Washington, that ghost-like rising of the impulses of old 
Thomas, recurred more than once thereafter. In fact there 
is a period well-defined, a span of thirteen years terminat- 
ing suddenly on a day in i862', during which the ghost of 
old Thomas is a thing to be reckoned with in his son's life. 
It came and went, most of the time fortunately far on the 
horizon. But now and then it drew near. Always it was 
lurking somewhere, waiting to seize upon him in those mo- 
ments when his vitality sank, when his energies were in the 
ebb, when his thoughts were possessed by a sense of fu- 
tility. 

The year 1859 was one of his ebb tides. In the pre- 
vious year the rising tide, which had mounted high during 
his success on the circuit, reached its crest. The memory 
of his failure at Washington was effaced. At Freeport he 
was a more powerful genius, a more dominant personality, 
than he had ever been. Gradually, in the months following, 
the high wave subsided. During 1859 he gave most of his 
attention to his practice. Though political speech-making 
continued, and though he did not impair his reputation, he 
did nothing of a remarkable sort. The one literary frag- 
ment of any value is a letter to a Boston committee that had 
invited him to attend a "festival" in Boston on Jefferson's 



THE DARK HORSE 93 

birthday. He avowed himself a thoroughgoing disciple of 
Jefferson and pronounced the principles of Jefferson "the 
definitions and axioms of free society." Without condi- 
tions he identified his own cause with the cause of Jefferson, 
"the man who in the concrete pressure of a struggle for 
national independence by a single people, had the coolness, 
forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolution- 
ary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and 
all times, and so to embalm it there that to-day and in all 
coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to 
the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppres- 
sion."^ 

While the Boston committee were turning their eyes 
toward this great new phrase-maker of the West, several 
politicians in Illinois had formed a bold resolve. They 
would try to make him President. The movement had two 
sources — the personal loyalty of his devoted friends of the 
circuit, the shrewdness of the political managers who 
saw that his duel with Douglas had made him a national 
figure. As one of them said to him, "Douglas being so 
widely known, you are getting a national reputation through 
him." Lincoln replied that he did not lack the ambition 
but lacked altogether the confidence in the possibility of 
success.^ 

This was his attitude during most of 1859. The glow, 
the enthusiasm, of the previous year was gone. "I must 
in candor say that I do not think myself fit for the Presi- 
dency," he wrote to a newspaper editor in April. He used 
the same words to another correspondent in July. As late 
as November first, he wrote, "For my single self, I have 
enlisted for the permanent success of the Republican cause, 
and for this object I shall labor faithfully in the ranks. 



94 LINCOLN 

unless, as I think not probable, the judgment of the party 
shall assign me a different position."^ 

Meanwhile, both groups of supporters had labored un- 
ceasingly, regardless of his approval. In his personal fol- 
lowing, the companionableness of twenty years had deep- 
ened into an almost romantic loyalty. The leaders of this 
enthusiastic attachment, most of them lawyers, had no 
superiors for influence in Illinois. The man who had such 
a following was a power in politics whether he would or 
no. This the mere politicians saw\ They also saw that the 
next Republican nomination would rest on a delicate calcu- 
lation of probabilities. There were other Republicans more 
conspicuous than Lincoln — Seward in New York, Sumner 
in Massachusetts, Chase in Ohio — but all these had invet- 
erate enemies. Despite their importance would it be safe 
to nominate them? Would not the party be compelled 
to take some relatively minor figure, some essentially new 
man? In a word, what we know as a "dark horse." Be- 
lieving that this would happen, they built hopefully on their 
faith in Lincoln. 

Toward the end of the year he was at last persuaded to 
take his candidacy seriously. The local campaign for his 
nomination had gone so far that a failure to go further 
would have the look of being discarded as the local Repub- 
lican leader. This argument decided him. Before the 
year's end he had agreed to become a candidate before the 
convention. In his own words, "I am not in a position 
where it would hurt much for me to not be nominated on 
the national ticket ; but I am where it would hurt some for 
me to not get the Illinois delegates."* 

It was shortly after this momentous decision that he 
went to New York by invitation and made his most cele- 



THE DARK HORSE 95 

brated, though not in any respect his greatest, oration.^ A 
large audience filled Cooper Union February 27, i860. 
William Cullen Bryant presided. David Dudley Field 
escorted Lincoln to the platform. Horace Greeley 
was in the audience. Again, the performance was 
purely literary. No formulation of new policies, no 
appeal for any new departure. It was a masterly re- 
statement of his position ; of the essence of the debates with 
Douglas. It cleansed the Republican platform of all acci- 
dental accretions, as if a ship's hull were being scraped of 
barnacles preparatory to a voyage; it gave the underlying 
issues such inflexible definition that they could not be 
juggled with. Again he showed a power of lucid state- 
ment not possessed by any of his rivals. An incident of 
the speech was his unsparing condemnation of John Brown 
whose raid and death were on every tongue. "You charge 
that we stir up insurrections among your slaves," said he, 
apostrophizing the slave-holders. "We deny it, and what 
is your proof? 'Harper's Ferry; John Brown!' John 
Brown was no Republican ; and you have failed to impli- 
cate a single Republican in this Harper's Ferry enter- 
prise. . . . 

"John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave 
insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a 
revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to partici- 
pate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves with all 
their ignorance saw plainly enough that it could not suc- 
ceed. That affair in its philosophy corresponds with the 
many attempts related in history at the assassination of 
kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppres- 
sion of the people until he fancies himself commissioned 
by heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt which 



96 LINCOLN 

ends in little else than his own execution. Orsino's attempt 
on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's 
Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The 
eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case and 
on New England in the odier, does not disprove the same- 
ness of the two things." 

The Cooper Union speech received extravagant praise 
from all the Republican newspapers. Lincoln's ardent par- 
tisans assert that it took New York "by storm." Rather 
too violent a way of putting it! But there can be no doubt 
that the speech made a deep impression. Thereafter, many 
of the Eastern managers were willing to consider Lincoln 
as a candidate, should factional jealousies prove uncompro- 
mising. Any port in a storm, you know. Obviously, there 
could be ports far more dangerous than this "favorite son" 
of Illinois. 

Many national conventions in the United States have 
decided upon a compromise candidate, "a dark horse," 
through just such reasoning. The most noted instance is 
the Republican Convention of i860. When it assembled at 
Chicago in June, the most imposing candidate was the bril- 
liant leader of the New York Republicans, Seward. But no 
man in the country had more bitter enemies. Horace 
Greeley whose paper The Tribune was by far the most in- 
fluential Republican organ, went to Chicago obsessed by one 
purpose : because of irreconcilable personal quarrels he would 
have revenge upon Seward. Others who did not hate 
Seward were afraid of what Greeley symbolized. And all 
of them knew that whatever else happened, the West must 
be secured. 

The Lincoln managers played upon the Eastern jeal- 
ousies and the Eastern fears with great skill. There was 



THE DARK HORSE 97 

little sleep among the delegates the night previous to the 
balloting. At just the right moment, the Lincoln managers, 
though their chief had forbidden them to do so, offered 
promises with regard to Cabinet appointments.^ And they 
succeeded in packing the galleries of the Convention Hall 
with a perfectly organized claque — "rooters," the modern 
American would say. 

The result on the third ballot was a rush to Lincoln of 
all the enemies of Seward, and Lincoln's nomination amid 
a roaring frenzy of applause. 



XI 



SECESSION 



After twenty-three years of successive defeats, Lincoln, 
almost fortuitously, was at the center of the political mael- 
strom. The clue to what follows is in the way he had 
developed during that long discouraging apprenticeship to 
greatness. Mentally, he had always been in isolation. 
Socially, he had lived in a near horizon. The real tragedy 
of his failure at Washington was in the closing against 
him of the opportunity to know his country as a whole. 
Had it been Lincoln instead of Douglas to whom destiny 
had given a residence at Washington during the 'fifties, it 
is conceivable that things might have been different in the 
'sixties. On the other hand, America would have lost its 
greatest example of the artist in politics. 

And without that artist, without his extraordinary 
literary gift, his party might not have consolidated in i860. 
A very curious party it was. It had sprung to life as a 
denial, as a device for halting Douglas. Lincoln's doc- 
trine of the golden mean, became for once a political power. 
Men of the most diverse views on other issues accepted in 
their need the axiom : "Stand with anybody so long as he 
stands right." And standing right, for that moment in 
the minds of them all, meant keeping slavery and the 
money power from devouring the territories. 

The artist of the movement expressed them all in his 
declaration that the nation needed the Territories to give 

98 



SECESSION 99 

home and opportunity to free white people. Even the 
Abolitionist, who hitherto had refused to make common 
cause with any other faction, entered the negative coalition 
of the new party. So did Whigs, and anti-slavery Demo- 
crats, as well as other factions then obscure which we 
should now label Socialists and Labormen. 

However, this coalition, which in origin was purely 
negative, revealed, the moment it coalesced, two positive 
features. To the man of the near horizon in i860 neither 
of these features seemed of first importance. To the man 
outside that horizon, seeing them in perspective as related 
to the sum total of American life, they had a significance 
he did not entirely appreciate. 

The first of these was the temper of the Abolitionists. 
Lincoln ignored it. He was content with his ringing as- 
sertion of the golden mean. But there spoke the man of 
letters rather than the statesman. Of temper in politics 
as an abstract idea, he had been keenly conscious from the 
first; but his lack of familiarity with political organizations 
kept him from assigning full value to the temper of any 
one factor as affecting the joint temper of the whole group. 
It was appointed for him to learn this in a supremely hard 
way and to apply the lesson with wonderful audacity. But 
in i860 that stern experience still slept in the future. He 
had no suspicion as yet that he might find it difficult to 
carry out his own promise to stand with the Abolitionists 
in excluding slavery from the Territories, and to stand 
against them in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law. He did 
not yet see why any one should doubt the validity of this 
promise; why any one should be afraid to go along with 
him, afraid that the temper of one element would infect 
the whole coalition. 



lOo LINCOLN 

But this fear that Lincoln did not allow for, possessed 
already a great many minds. Thousands of Southerners, 
of the sort whom Lincoln credited with good intentions 
about slavery, feared the Abolitionists. Not because the 
Abolitionists wanted to destroy slavery, but because they 
wanted to do so fiercely, cruelly. Like Lincoln, these South- 
erners who were liberals in thought and moderates in action, 
did not know what to do about slavery. Like Lincoln, they 
had but one fixed idea with regard to it, — slavery must 
not be terminated violently. Lincoln, despite his near 
horizon, sensed them correctly as not being at one with 
the great plutocrats who wished to exploit slavery. But 
when the Abolitionist poured out the same fury of vitupera- 
tion on every sort of slave-holder; when he promised his 
soul that it should yet have the joy of exulting in the ruin 
of all such, the moderate Southerners became as flint. 
When the Abolitionists proclaimed their affiliation with 
the new party, the first step was taken toward a general 
Southern coalition to stop the Republican advance. 

There was another positive element blended into the 
negative coalition. In 1857, the Republicans overruling 
the traditions of those members who had once been Demo- 
crats, set their faces toward protection. To most of the 
Northerners the fatefulness of the step was not obvious. 
Twenty years had passed since a serious tariff controversy 
had shaken the North. Financial difficulties in the 'fifties 
were more prevalent in the North than in the South. Busi- 
ness was in a quandary. Labor was demanding better 
opportunities. Protection as a solution, or at least as a 
palliative, seemed to the mass of the Republican coalition, 
even to the former Democrats for all their free trade 
traditions, not outrageous. To the Southerners It was an 
alarm bell. The Southern world was agricultural; its 



SECESSION loi 

staple was cotton; the bulk of its market was in England. 
Ever since 1828, the Southern mind had been constantly 
on guard with regard to tariff, unceasing!}^ fearful that 
protection would be imposed on it by Northern and West- 
ern votes. To have to sell its cotton in England at free 
trade values, but at the same time to have to buy its com- 
modities at protected values fixed by Northern manufac- 
turers — what did that mean but the despotism of one 
section over another? When the Republicans took up pro- 
tection as part of their creed, a general Southern coalition 
was rendered almost inevitable. 

This, Lincoln did not see. Again it is to be accounted 
for in part by his near horizon. Had he lived at Wash- 
ington, had he met, frequently. Southern men; had he 
passed those crucial years of the 'fifties in debates with 
political leaders rather than in story-telling tournaments on 
the circuit; perhaps all this would have been otherwise. 
But one can not be quite sure. Finance never appealed to 
him. A wide application may be given to Herndon's re- 
mark that "he had no money sense." All the rest of the 
Republican doctrine finds its best statement in Lincoln. 
On the one subject of its economic policy he Is silent. Ap- 
parently it is to be classified with the routine side of the 
law. To neither was he ever able to give more than a 
perfunctory attention. As an artist in politics he had the 
defect of his qualities. 

What his qualities showed him were two things: the 
alliance of the plutocratic slave power with the plutocratic 
money power, and the essential rightness In impulse of 
the bulk of the Southern people. Hence his conclusion 
which became his party's conclusion : that, in the South, 
a political-financial ring was dominating a leaderless 
people. 



102 LINCOLN 

This was not the truth. Lincoln's defects in i860 
limited his vision. Nevertheless, to the solitary distant 
thinker, shut in by the near horizon of political Springfield, 
there was every excuse for the error. The palpable evi- 
dence all confirmed it. What might have contradicted it 
was a cloud of witnesses, floating, incidental, casual, tacit. 
Just what a nature like Lincoln's, if only he could have 
met them, would have perceived and comprehended ; what 
a nature like Douglas's, no matter how plainly they were 
presented to him, could neither perceive nor comprehend. 
It was the irony of fate that an opportunity to fathom his 
time was squandered upon the unseeing Douglas, while to 
the seeing Lincoln it was denied. In a word, the Southern 
reaction against the Republicans, like the Republican move- 
ment itself, had both a positive and a negative side. It 
was the positive side that could be seen and judged at long 
range. And this was what Lincoln saw, which appeared 
to him to have created the dominant issue in i860. 

The negative side of the Southern movement he did not 
see. He was too far away to make out the details of the 
picture. Though he may have known from the census of 
1850 that only one-third of the Southern whites were mem- 
bers of slave-holding families, he could scarcely have known 
that only a small minority of the Southern families owned 
as many as five slaves; that those who had fortunes in 
slaves were a mere handful — just as to-day those who have 
fortunes in steel or beef are mere handfuls. But still less 
did he know how entirely this vast majority which had so 
little, if any, interest in slavery, had grown to fear and 
distrust the North. They, like him, were suffering from 
a near horizon. They, too, were applying the principle 
"Stand with anybody so long as he stands right." But 



SECESSION 103 

for them, standing' right meant preventing a violent revolu- 
tion in Southern life. Indifferent as they were to slavei"y, 
they were willing to go along with the "slave-barons" in 
the attempt to consolidate the South in a movement of 
denial — a denial of the right of the North, either through 
Abolitionism or through tariff, to dominate the South. 

If only Lincoln v/ith his subtle mind could have come 
into touch with the negative side of the Southern agi- 
tation ! It was the other side, the positive side, that was 
vocal. With immense shrewdness the profiteers of slavery 
saw and developed their opportunity. They organized the 
South. They preached on all occasions, in all connections, 
the need of all Southerners to stand together, no matter 
how great their disagreements, in order to prevent the im- 
poverishment of the South by hostile economic legislation. 
During the late 'fifties their propaganda for an all-Southern 
policy, made slow but constant headway. But even in 
1859 these ideas were still far from controlling the 
South. 

And then came John Brown. The dread of slave in- 
surrection was laid deep in Southern recollection. Thirty 
years before, the Nat Turner Rebellion had filled a portion 
of Virginia with burned plantation houses amid whose 
ruins lay the dead bodies of white women. A little earlier, 
a negro conspiracy at Charleston planned the murder of 
white men and the parceling out of white women among 
the conspirators. And John Brown had come into Vir- 
ginia at the head of a band of strangers calling upon the 
slaves to rise and arm. 

Here was a supreme opportunity. The positive South- 
ern force, the slave profiteers, seized at once the attitude 
of champions of the South. It was easy enough to enlist 



I04 LINCOLN 

the negative force in a shocked and outraged denunciation 
of everything Northern. And the Northern extremists did 
all that was in their power to add fuel to the flame. Emer- 
son called Brown "this new saint who had made the gal- 
lows glorious as the cross." The Southerners, hearing 
that, thought of the conspiracy to parcel out the white 
women of Charleston. Early in i860 it seemed as if the 
whole South had but one idea — to part company with the 
North. 

No wonder Lincoln threw all his influence into the 
scale to discredit the memory of Brown. No wonder the 
Republicans in their platform carefully repudiated him. 
They could not undo the impression made on the Southern 
mind by two facts : the men who lauded Brown as a new 
saint were voting the Republican ticket; the Republicans 
had committed themselves to the anti-Southern policy of 
protection. 

And yet, in spite of all the labors of pro-slavery ex- 
tremists, the movement for a breach with the North lost 
ground during i860. When the election came, the vote 
for President revealed a singular and unforeseen situation. 
Four candidates were in the field. The Democrats, split 
into two by the issue of slaveiy expansion, formed two 
parties. The slave profiteers secured the nomination by 
one faction of John C. Breckinridge. The moderate 
Democrats who would neither fight nor favor slavery, 
nominated Douglas. The most peculiar group was the 
fourth. They included all those who would not join the 
Republicans for fear of the temper of the Abolition mem- 
bers, but who were not promoters of slavery, and who dis- 
trusted Douglas. They had no program but to restore the 
condition of things that existed before the Nebraska Bill. 



SECESSION 105 

About four million five hundred thousand votes were 
cast. Lincoln had less than two million, and all but about 
twenty- four thousand of these were in the Free States. 
However, the disposition of Lincoln's vote gave him the 
electoral college. He was chosen President by the votes of 
a minority of the nation. But there was another minority 
vote which as events turned out, proved equally significant. 
Breckinridge, the symbol of the slave profiteers, and of all 
those whom they had persuaded to follow them, had not 
been able to carry the popular vote of the South. They 
were definitely in the minority in their own section. The 
majority of the Southerners had so far reacted from the 
wild alarms of the beginning of the year that they refused 
to go along with the candidates of the extremists. They 
were for giving the Union another trial. The South itself 
had repudiated the slave profiteers. 

This was the immensely significant fact of November, 
i860. It made a great impression on the whole country. 
For the moment it made the fierce talk of the Southern 
extremists inconsequential. Buoyant Northerners, such as 
Seward, felt that the crisis was over; that the South had 
voted for a reconciliation; that only tact was needed to 
make everybody happy. When, a few weeks after the 
election, Seward said that all would be meny again inside 
of ninety days, his illusion had for its foundation the 
Southern rejection of the slave profiteers. 

Unfortunately, Seward did not understand the precise 
significance of the thought of the moderate South. He did 
not understand that while the South had voted to send 
Breckinridge and his sort about their business, it was still 
deeply alarmed, deeply fearful that after all it might at any 
minute be forced to call them back, to make common cause 



io6 LINCOLN 

with them against what it regarded as an aHen and de- 
structive poHtical power, the Repiibhcans. This was the 
Southern reservation, the unspoken condition of the vote 
which Seward — and for that matter, Lincoln, also, — failed 
to comprehend. Because of these cross-purposes, because 
the Southern alarm was based on another thing than the 
standing or falling of slavery, the situation called for much 
more than tact, for profound psychological statesmanship. 
And now emerges out of the complexities of the South- 
ern situation a powerful personality whose ideas and point 
of view Lincoln did not understand. Robert Barnwell 
Rhett had once been a man of might in politics. Twice he 
had very nearly rent the Union asunder. In 1844, again 
in 185 1, he had come to the very edge of persuading South 
Carolina to secede. In each case he sought to organize the 
general discontent of the South, — its dread of a tariff, and 
of Northern domination. After his second failure, his 
haughty nature took offense at fortune. He resigned his 
seat in the Senate and withdrew to private life. But he 
was too large and too bold a character to attain obscurity. 
Nor would his restless genius permit him to rust in ease. 
During the troubled 'fifties, he watched from a distance, 
but with ever increasing interest, that negative Southern 
force which he, in the midst of it, comprehended, while it 
drifted under the wing of the extremists. As he did so, 
the old arguments, the old ambitions, the old hopes re- 
vived. In 185 1 his cry to the South was to assert itself 
as a separate nation — not for any one reason, but for many 
reasons — 'and to lead its own life apart from the North. 
It was an age of brilliant though ill-fated revolutionary 
movements in Europe. Kossuth and the gallant Hun- 
garian attempt at independence had captivated the Amer- 



SECESSION 107 

ican imagination. Rhett dreamed of seeing the South do 
what Hungary had failed to do. He thought of the prob- 
lem as a medieval knight would have thought, in terms of 
individual prowess, with the modern factors, economics 
and all their sort, left on one side. "Smaller nations [than 
South Carolina]," he said in 185 1, "have striven for free- 
dom against greater odds." 

In i860 he had concluded that his third chance had 
come. He would try once more to bring about secession. 
To split the Union, he would play into the hands of the 
slave-barons. He would aim to combine with their move- 
ment the negative Southern movement and use the result- 
ing coalition to crown with success his third attempt. 
Issuing from his seclusion, he became at once the over- 
shadowing figure in South Carolina. Around him all the 
elements of revolution crystallized. He was sixty years 
old ; seasoned and uncompromising in the pursuit of his 
one ideal, the independence of the South. His arguments 
were the same which he had used in 1844, in 185 1: the 
North would impoverish the South ; it threatens to impose 
a crushing tribute in the shape of protection; it seeks to 
destroy slavery; it aims to bring about economic collapse; 
in the wreck thus produced, everything that is beautiful, 
charming, distinctive in Southern life will be lost; let us 
fight! With such a leader, the forces of discontent were 
quickly, effectively, organized. Even before the election 
of Lincoln, the revolutionary leaders in' South Carolina 
were corresponding with men of like mind in other South- 
ern States, especially Alabama, where was another leader, 
Yancey, only second in intensity to Rhett. 

Tlie word from these Alabama revolutionists to South 
Carolina was to dare all, to risk seceding alone, confident 



io8 LINCOLN 

that the other States of the South would follow. Rhett 
and his new associates took this perilous advice. The elec- 
tion was followed by the call of a convention of delegates 
of the people of South Carolina. This convention, on the 
twentieth of December, i860, repealed the laws which 
united South Carolina with the other States and proclaimed 
their own independent. 



XII 



THE CRISIS 



Though Seward and other buoyant natures felt that 
the crisis had passed with the election, less volatile people 
held the opposite view. Men who had never before taken 
seriously the Southern threats of disunion had waked sud- 
denly to a terrified consciousness that they were in for it. 
In their blindness to realities earlier in the year, they were 
like that brilliant host of camp followers which, as Thack- 
eray puts it, led the army of Wellington dancing and feast- 
ing to the very brink of Waterloo. And now the day of 
reckoning had come. An emotional reaction carried them 
from one extreme to the other; from self-sufficient disre- 
gard of their adversaries to an almost self-abasing regard. 

The very type of these people and of their reaction 
was Horace Greeley. He was destined many times to make 
plain that he lived mainly in his sensibilities; that, in his 
kaleidoscopic vision, the pattern of the world could be red 
and yellow and green to-day, and orange and purple and 
blue to-morrow. To descend from a pinnacle of self- 
complacency into a desolating abyss of panic, was as easy 
for Greeley as it is — in the vulgar but pointed American 
phrase — to roll off a log. A few days after the election, 
Greeley had rolled off his log. He was wallowing in panic. 
He began to scream editorially. The Southern extremists 
were terribly in earnest: if they wanted to go. go they 
would, and go they should. But foolish Northerners would 

109 



no LINCOLN 

be sure to talk war and the retaining of the South in the 
Union by force : it must not be ; what was the Union com- 
pared with bloodshed? There must be no war — no war. 
Such was Greeley's terrified appeal to the North. A few 
weeks after the election he printed his famous editorial de- 
nouncing the idea of a Union pinned together by bayonets. 
He followed up with another startling concession to his 
fears : the South had as good cause for leaving the Union 
as the colonies had for leaving the British Empire. A little 
later, he formulated his ultimate conclusion, — which like 
many of his ultimates proved to be transitory, — and de- 
clared that if any group of Southern States "choose to 
form an independent nation, they have a clear moral right 
to do so," and pledging himself and his followers to do 
"our best to forward their views." 

Greeley wielded through The Tribune more influence, 
perhaps, than was possessed by any other Republican with 
the single exception of Lincoln. His newspaper constitu- 
ency was enormous, and the relation between the leader 
and the led was unusually close. He was both oracle and 
barometer. As a symptom of the Republican panic, as a 
cause increasing that panic, he was of first importance. 

Meanwhile Congress had met. And at once, the most 
characteristic peculiarity of the moment was again made 
emphatic. The popular majorities and the political ma- 
chines did not coincide. Both in the North and in the 
South a minority held the situation in the hollow of its 
hand. The Breckinridge Democrats, despite their repudia- 
tion in the presidential vote, included so many of the South- 
ern politicians, they were so well organized, they had 
scored such a menacing victory with the aid of Rhett in 
South Carolina, they had played so skilfully on the fears 



THE CRISIS III 

of the South at large, their leaders were such skilled man- 
agers, that they were able to continue for the moment the 
recognized spokesmen of the South at Washington. They 
lost no time defining their position. If the Union were not 
to be sundered, the Republicans must pledge themselves to 
a new and extensive compromise; it must be far different 
from those historic compromises that had preceded it. 
Three features must characterize any new agreement : The 
South must be dealt with as a unit; it must be given a 
"sphere of influence" — to use our modern term — which 
would fully satisfy all its impulses of expansion; and in 
that sphere, every question of slavery must be left entirely, 
forever, to local action. In a word, they demanded for 
the South what to-day would be described as a "dominion" 
status. Therefore, they insisted that the party which had 
captured the Northern political machine should formulate 
its reply to these demands. They gave notice that they 
W'ould not discuss individual schemes, but only such as the 
victorious Republicans might officially present. Thus the 
national crisis became a party crisis. What could the Re- 
publicans among themselves agree to propose ? 

The central figure of the crisis seemed at first to be the 
brilliant Republican Senator from New York. Seward 
thought he understood the South, and what was still more 
important, human nature. Though he echoed Greeley's 
cry for peace — translating his passionate hysteria into the 
polished cynicism of a diplomat who had been known to 
deny that he was ever entirely serious — he scoffed at Gree- 
ley's fears. If the South had not voted lack of confidence 
in the Breckinridge crowd, what had it voted? If the 
Breckinridge leaders weren't maneuvering to save their 
faces, what could they be accused of doing? If Seward, 



112 LINCOLN 

the Republican man of genius, couldn't see through all that, 
couldn't devise a way to help them save their faces, what 
was the use in being a brilliant politician? 

Jauntily self-complacent, as confident of himself as if 
Rome were burning and he the garlanded fiddler, Seward 
braced himself for the task of recreating the Union. 

But there was an obstacle in his path. It was Lincoln. 
Of course, it was folly to propose a scheme which the in- 
coming President would not sustain. Lincoln and Seward 
must come to an understanding. To bring that about 
Seward despatched a personal legate to Springfield. Thur- 
low Weed, editor, man of the world, political wire-puller 
beyond compare, Seward's devoted henchman, was the 
legate. One of the great events of American history was 
the conversation between Weed and Lincoln in December, 
i860. By a rare propriety of dramatic effect, it occurred 
probably, on the very day South Carolina brought to an 
end its campaign of menace and adopted its Ordinance 
of Secession, December twentieth.^ 

Weed had brought to Springfield a definite proposal. 
The Crittenden Compromise was being hotly discussed in 
Congress and throughout the country. All the Northern 
advocates of conciliation were eager to put it through. 
There was some ground to believe that the Southern ma- 
chine at Washington would accept it. If Lincoln would 
agree, Seward would make it the basis of his policy. 

This Compromise would have restored the old line of 
the Missouri Compromise and would have placed it under 
the protection of a constitutional amendment. This, to- 
gether with a guarantee against congressional interference 
with slavery in the States where it existed, a guarantee the 
Republicans had already offered, seemed to Seward, to 



THE CRISIS 113 

Weed, to Greeley, to the bulk of the party, a satisfactory 
means of preserving the Union. What was it but a fall- 
ing back on the original policy of the party, the undoing 
of those measures of 1854 which had called the party into 
being? Was it conceivable that Lincoln would balk the 
wishes of the party by obstructing such a natural mode of 
extrication? But that was what Lincoln did. His views 
had advanced since 1854. Then, he was merely for restor- 
ing the old duality of the country, the two "dominions," 
Northern and Southern, each with its own social order. 
He had advanced to the belief that this duality could not 
permanently continue. Just how far Lincoln realized what 
he was doing in refusing to compromise will never be 
known. Three months afterward, he took a course w^hich 
seems to imply that his vision during the interim had ex- 
panded, had opened before him a new revelation of the na- 
ture of his problem. At the earlier date Lincoln and the 
Southern people — not the Southern machine — were looking 
at the one problem from opposite points of view, and were 
locating the significance of the problem in different features. 
To Lincoln, the heart of the matter was slavery. To the 
Southerners, including the men who had voted lack of confi- 
dence in Breckinridge, the heart of the matter was the 
sphere of influence. What the Southern majority wanted 
was not the policy of the slave profiteers but a secure future 
for expansion, a guarantee that Southerh life, social, 
economic, cultural, would not be merged with the life of 
the opposite section : in a word, preservation of "dominion" 
status. In Lincoln's mind, slavery being the main issue, 
this "dominion" issue was incidental, a mere outgrowth of 
slavery that should begin to pass away with slavery's re- 
striction. In the Southern mind, a communitv conscious- 



114 LINCOLN 

ness, the determination to be a people by themselves, a 
nation within the nation, was the issue, and slavery was 
the incident. To repeat, it is impossible to say what Lin- 
coln would have done had he comprehended the Southern 
attitude. His near horizon which had kept him all along 
from grasping the negative side of the Southern move- 
ment prevented his perception of this tragic instance of 
cross-purposes. 

Lacking this perception, his thoughts had centered 
themselves on a recent activity of the slave profiteers. They 
had clamored for the annexation of new territory to the 
south of us. Various attempts had been made to create 
an international crisis looking toward the seizure of Cuba. 
Then, too, bold adventurers had staked their heads, seek- 
ing to found slave-holding communities in Central America. 
Why might not such attempts succeed? Why might not 
new Slave States be created outside the Union, eventually 
to be drawn in? Why not? said the slave profiteer, and 
gave money and assistance to the filibusters in Nicaragua. 
Why not? said Lincoln, also. What protection against 
such an extension of boundaries? Was the limitation of 
slave area to be on one side only, the Northern side ? And 
here at last, for Lincoln, was what appeared to be the true 
issue of the moment. To dualize the Union, assuming its 
boundaries to be fixed, was one thing. To dualize the 
Union in the face of a movement for extension of bound- 
aries was another. Hence it was now vital, as Lincoln 
reasoned, to give slavery a fixed boundary on all sides. 
Silently, while others fulminated, or rhapsodized, or wailed, 
he had moved inexorably to a new position which was 
nothing but a logical development of the old. The old 
position was — no extension of slave territory; the new posi- 



THE CRISIS 115 

tion was — no more Slave States.- Because Crittenden's 
Compromise left it possible to have a new Slave State in 
Cuba, a new Slave State in Nicaragua, perhaps a dozen 
such new States, Lincoln refused to compromise.^ 

It was a terrible decision, carrying within it the possi- 
bility of civil war. But Lincoln could not be moved. This 
w^as the first acquaintance of the established political leaders 
widi his inflexible side. In the recesses of his own thoughts 
the decision had been reached. It was useless to argue 
with him. Weed carried back his ultimatum. Seward 
abandoned Crittenden's scheme. The only chance for 
compromise passed away. The Southern leaders set about 
their plans for organizing a Southern Confederacy. 



XIII 



ECLIPSE 



Lincoln's ultimatum of December twentieth contained 
three proposals that might be made to the Southern leaders : 

That the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law which 
hitherto had been left to State authorities should be taken 
over by Congress and supported by the Republicans. 

That the Republicans to the extent of their power should 
work for the repeal of all those "Personal Liberty Laws" 
which had been established in certain Northern States to 
defeat the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

That the Federal Union must be preserved.^ 

In presenting these proposals along with a refusal to 
consider the Crittenden Compromise, Seward tampered with 
their clear-cut form. Fearful of the effect on the extrem- 
ists of the Republican group, he withheld Lincoln's uncon- 
ditional promise to maintain the Fugitive Slave Law and 
instead of pledging his party to the repeal of Personal 
Liberty Laws he promised only to have Congress request 
the States to repeal them. He suppressed altogether the 
assertion that the Union must be preserved.- About the 
same time, in a public speech, he said he was not going to 
be "humbugged" by the bogy of secession, and gave his 
fatuous promise that all the trouble would be ended inside 
ninety days. For all his brilliancy of a sort, he was spirit- 
ually obtuse. On him, as on Douglas, Fate had lavished 
opportunities to see life as it is, to understand the motives 

ii6 



ECLIPSE 117 

of men; but it could not make him use them. He was 
incorrigibly cynical. He could not divest himself of the 
idea that all this confusion was hubbub, was but an ordmary 
political game, that his only cue was to assist his adver- 
saries in saving their faces. In spite of his rich experience, 
in spite of being an accomplished man of the world,— at 
least in his own estimation— he was as blind to the real 
motives of that Southern majority which had rejected 
Breckinridge as was the inexperienced Lincoln. The cool- 
ness with which he modified Lincoln's proposals was evi- 
dence that he considered himself the great Republican and 
Lincoln an accident. He was to do the same again— to his 

own regret. 

When Lincoln issued his ultimatum, he was approach- 
ing the summit, if not at the very summit, of another of his 
successive waves of vitality, of self-confidence. That de- 
pression which came upon him about the end of 1858, which 
kept him undecided, in a mood of excessive caution during 
most of 1859, had passed away. The presidential campaign 
with its thrilling tension, its excitement, had charged him 
anew with confidence. Although one more eclipse was in 
store for him— the darkest eclipse of all— he was very 
nearly the definitive Lincoln of history. At least, he had 
the courage which that Lincoln was to show. 

He was now the target for a besieging army of politi- 
cians clamoring for "'spoils" in the shape of promises of 
preferment. It was a miserable and disgraceful assault 
which profoundly offended him.^ To his mind this was 
not the same thing as the simple-hearted personal politics 
of his younger days— friends standing together and helping 
one another along— but a gross and monstrous rapacity. 
It was the first chill shadow that followed the election day. 



ii8 LINCOLN 

There were difficult intrigues over the Cabinet. Prom- 
ises made by his managers at Chicago were presented for 
redemption. Rival candidates bidding for his favor, tried 
to cut each other's throats. For example, there was the 
intrigue of the War Department. The Lincoln managers 
had promised a Cabinet appointment to Pennsylvania; the 
followers of Simon Cameron were a power; it had been 
necessary to win them over in order to nominate Lincoln ; 
they insisted that their leader was now entitled to the Penn- 
sylvania seat in the Cabinet; but tliere was an anti-Cameron 
faction almost as potent in Pennsylvania as the Cameron 
faction. Both sent their agents to Springfield to lay siege 
to Lincoln. In this duel, the Cameron forces won the first 
round. Lincoln offered him the Secretaryship. Subse- 
quently, his enemies made so good a case that Lincoln was 
convinced of the unwisdom of his decision and withdrew 
the offer. But Cameron had not kept the offer confidential. 
The withdrawal would discredit him politically and put a 
trump card into the hands of his enemies. A long dispute 
followed. Not until Lincoln had reached Washington, im- 
mediately before the inauguration, was the dispute ended, 
the withdrawal withdrawn, and Cameron appointed.^ 

It was a dreary winter for the President-elect. It was 
also a brand-new experience. For the first time he was a 
dispenser of favor on a grand scale. Innumerable men 
showed their meanest side, either to advance themselves or 
to mjure others. As the weeks passed and the spectacle 
grew in shamelessness, his friends became more and more 
conscious of his peculiar melancholy. The elation of the 
campaign subsided into a deep unhappiness over the vanity 
of this world. 

Other phases of the shadowy side of his character also 



ECLIPSE . 119 

asserted themselves. Conspicuous was a certain trend in 
his thinking that was part of Herndon's warrant for calling 
him a fatalist. Lincoln's mysticism very early had taken a 
turn toward predestination, coupled with a belief in dreams.^ 
He did not in any way believe in magic ; he never had any 
faith in divinations, in the occult, in any secret mode of 
alluring the unseen powers to take one's side. Nevertheless, 
he made no bones about being superstitious. And he 
thought that coming events cast their shadows before, that 
something, at least, of the future was sometimes revealed 
through dreams. "Nature," he would say, "is the work- 
shop of the Almighty, and we form but links in the chain 
of intellectual and material life."® Byron's Dream was one 
of his favorite poems. He pondered those ancient, histori- 
cal tales which make free use of portents. There was a 
fascination for him in the story of Caracalla — how his 
murder of Geta was foretold, how he was upbraided by the 
ghosts of his father and brother. This dream-faith of his 
was as real as was a similar faith held by the authors of the 
Old Testament. He had his theory of the interpretation 
of dreams. Because they were a universal experience — 
as he believed, the universal mode of communication be- 
tween the unseen and the seen — his beloved "plain people," 
the "children of Nature," the most universal t3^pes of hu- 
manity, were their best interpreters. He also believed in 
presentiment. As faithfully as the simplest of the brood 
of the forest — those recreated primitives who regulated their 
farming by the brightness or the darkness of the moon, who 
planted corn or slaughtered hogs as Artemis directed — he 
trusted a presentiment if once it really took possession of 
him. A presentiment which had been formed before this 
time, we know not when, was clothed with authority by a 



I20 LINCOLN 

dream, or rather a vision, that came to him in the days of 
melancholy disillusion during the last winter at Springfield. 
Looking into a mirror, he saw two Lincolns, — one alive, 
the other dead. It was this vision which clenched his pre- 
sentiment that he was born to a great career and to a tragic 
end. He interpreted the vision that his administration 
would be successful, but that it would close with his death. '^ 

The record of his inner life during the last winter at 
Springfield is very dim. But there can be no doubt that a 
desolating change attacked his spirit. As late as the day 
of his ultimatum he was still in comparative sunshine, or, 
at least his clouds were not close about him. His will was 
steel, that day. Nevertheless, a friend who visited him in 
January, to talk over their days together, found not only 
that "the old-time zest" was lacking, but that it was replaced 
by "gloom and despondency."^ The ghosts that hovered so 
frequently at the back of his mind, the brooding tendencies 
which fed upon his melancholy and made him at times ir- 
resolute, were issuing from the shadows, trooping forward, 
to encompass him roundabout. 

In the midst of this spiritual reaction, he was further 
depressed by the stern news from the South and from 
Washington. His refusal to compromise was beginning to 
bear fruit. The Gulf States seceded. A Southern Con- 
federacy was formed. There is no evidence that he lost 
faith in his course, but abundant evidence that he was 
terribly unhappy. He was preyed upon by his sense of 
helplessness, while Buchanan through his weakness and 
vacillation was "giving away the case." "Secession is being 
fostered," said he, "rather than repressed, and if the doc- 
trine meets with general acceptance in the Border States, it 
will be a great blow to the government."^ He did not de- 



ECLIPSE 121 

ceive himself upon the possible effect of his ultimatum, and 
sent word to General Scott to be prepared to hold or to 
"retake" the forts garrisoned by Federal troops in the 
Southern States.*" 

All the while his premonition of the approach of doom 
grew more darkly oppressive. The trail of the artist is 
discernible across his thoughts. In his troubled imagina- 
tion he identified his own situation with that of the protag- 
onist in tragedies on the theme of fate. He did not withhold 
his thoughts from the supreme instance. That same friend 
who found him possessed of gloom preserved these words 
of his: "I have read on my knees the story of Gethsemane, 
when the Son of God prayed in vain that the cup of bitter- 
ness might pass from him. I am in the Garden of Gethsem- 
ane now and my cup of bitterness is full and overflowing 
now."ii 

"Like some strong seer in a trance, 

Seeing all his own mischance, 

With a glassy countenance," 

he faced toward Washington, toward the glorious terror 
promised him by his superstitions. 

The last days before the departure were days of mingled 
gloom, desperation, and the attempt to recover hope. He 
visited his old stepmother and made a pilgrimage to his 
father's grave. His thoughts fondly renewed the details 
of his past life, hngered upon this and that, as if fearful 
that it was all slipping away from him forever. And then 
he roused himself as if in sudden revolt against the Fates. 
The day before he left Springfield forever Lincoln met his 
partner for the last time at their law ofiice to wind up the 
last of their unsettled business. "After those things were 
all disposed of," says Herndon, "he crossed to the opposite 



122 LINCOLN 

side of the room and threw himself down on the old office 
sofa. . . . He lay there for some moments his face to 
the ceiling without either of us speaking. Presently, he in-- 
quired: 'Billy' — he always called me by that name — 'how 
long have we been together?' 'Over sixteen years,' I an- 
swered. *We'\'e never had a cross word during all that 
time, have we?' . . . He gathered a bundle of papers 
and books he wished to take with him and started to go, 
but before leaving, he made the strange request that the 
sign board which swung on its rusty hinges at the foot of 
the stairway would remain. 'Let it hang there undis- 
turbed,' he said, with a significant lowering of the voice. 
'Give our clients to understand that the election of a Presi- 
dent makes no change in the firm of Lincoln & Hemdon. 
If I live, I am coming back some time, and then we'll go 
right on practising law as if nothing had happened.' He 
lingered for a moment as if to take a last look at the old 
quarters, and then passed through the door into the narrow 
hallway."i2 

On a dreary day with a cold rain falling, he set forth. 
The railway station was packed with friends. He made 
his way through the crowd slowly, shaking hands. "Hav- 
ing finally reached the train, he ascended the rear platform, 
and, facing about to the throng which had closed about him, 
drew himself up to his full height, removed his hat and 
stood for several seconds in profound silence. His eyes 
roved sadly over that sea of upturned faces. . . . 
There was an unusual quiver on his lips and a still more 
unusual tear on his shriveled cheek. His solemn manner, 
his long silence, were as full of melancholy eloquence as any 
words he could have uttered. "^^ At length, he spoke: 
"My friends, no one not in my situation can appreciate my 



ECLIPSE 123 

feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place and the 
kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have 
lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young 
to an old man. Here my children have been born and one 
is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever, 
I may return, with a task before me greater than that which 
rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that 
Divine Being who ever attended him, I can not succeed. 
With that assistance, I can not fail. Trusting In Him who 
can go with me and remain with you, and be everywhere for 
good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To 
His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you 
will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."^* 



CONFUSIONS 



XIV 



THE STRANGE NEW MAN 

There Is a period of sixteen months — from February, 
1861, to a day in June, 1862, — when Lincohi is the most 
singular, the most problematic of statesmen. Out of this 
period he issues with apparent abruptness, the final Lincoln, 
with a place among the few consummate masters of state- 
craft. During the sixteen months, his genius comes and 
goes. His confidence, whether in himself or in others, is 
an uncertain quantity. At times he is bold, even rash; at 
others, irresolute. The constant factor in his mood all this 
while is his amiazing humility. He seems to have forgotten 
his own existence. As a person with likes and dislikes, 
with personal hopes and fears, he has vanished. He is but 
an afflicted and perplexed mind, struggling desperately to 
save his country. A selfless man, he may be truly called 
through months of torment which made him over from a 
theoretical to a practical statesman. He entered this period 
a literary man who had been elevated almost by accident to 
the position of a leader in politics. After many blunders, 
after doubt, hesitation and pain, he came forth from this 
stern ordeal a powerful man of action. 

The impression which he made on the country at the 
opening of this period was unfortunate. The very power 
that had hitherto been the making of him — the literary 
power, revealing to men in wonderfully convincing form 
the ideas which they felt within them but could not 

127 



128 LINCOLN 

utter — this had deserted him. Explain the psychology of it 
any way you will, there is the fact ! The speeches Lincoln 
made on the way to Washington during the latter part of 
February were appallingly unlike himself. His mind had 
suddenly fallen dumb. He had nothing to say. The gloom, 
the desolation that had penetrated his soul, somehow, for 
the moment, made him commonplace. When he talked — 
as convention required him to do at all his stopping places — 
his words were but faint echoes of the great political ex- 
ponent he once had been. His utterances were fatuous; 
mere exhortations to the country not to worry. "There is 
no crisis but an artificial one," he said.^ And the country 
stood aghast ! Amazement, bewilderment, indignation, was 
the course of the reaction in many minds of his own party. 
Their verdict was expressed in the angry language of 
Samuel Bowles, "Lincoln is a Simple Susan,"^ 

In private talk, Lincoln admitted that he was "more 
troubled about the outlook than he thought it discreet to 
show." This remark was made to a "Public Man," whose 
diary has been published but whose identity is still secret. 
Though keenly alert for any touch of weakness or absurdity 
in the new President, calling him "the most ill-favored son 
of Adam I ever saw," the Public Man found him "crafty 
and sensible." In conversation, the old Lincoln, the match- 
less phrase-maker, could still express himself. At New 
York he was told of a wild scheme that was on foot to 
separate the city from the North, form a city state such 
as Hamburg then was, and set up a commercial alliance 
with the Confederacy. "As to the free city business," said 
Lincoln, "well, I reckon it will be some time before the 
front door sets up bookkeeping on its own account."^ The 
formal round of entertainment on his way to Washington 



THE STRANGE NEW MAN 129 

wearied Lincoln intensely. Harassed and preoccupied, he 
was generally ill at ease. And he was totally unused to 
sumptuous living. Failures in social usage were inevitable. 
New York was convulsed with amusement because at the 
opera he wore a pair of huge black kid gloves which at- 
tracted the attention of the whole house, "hanging as they 
did over the red velvet box front." At an informal recep- 
tion, between acts in the director's room, he looked terribly 
bored and sat on the sofa at the end of the room with his 
hat pushed back on his head. Caricatures filled the opposi- 
tion papers. He was spoken of as the "Illinois ape" and 
the "gorilla." Every rash remark, every "break" in social 
form, every gaucherie was seized upon and ridiculed with- 
out mercy. 

There is no denying that the oddities of Lincoln's man- 
ner though quickly dismissed from thought by men of 
genius, seriously troubled even generous men who lacked 
the intuitions of genius. And he never overcame these 
oddities. During the period of his novitiate as a ruler, the 
critical sixteen months, they were carried awkwardly, with 
embarrassment. Later when he had found himself as a 
ruler, when his self-confidence had reached its ultimate form 
and he knew what he really was, he forgot their existence. 
None the less, they were always a part of him, his indelible 
envelope. At the height of his power, he received visitors 
with his feet in leather slippers.^ He discussed great affairs 
of state with one of those slippered feet flung up on to a 
corner of his desk. A favorite attitude, even when debating 
vital matters with the great ones of the nation, is described 
by his secretaries as "sitting on his shoulders" — he would 
slide far down into his chair and stick up both slippers so 
high above his head that they could rest with ease upon 



I30 LINCOLN 

his mantelpiece.^ No wonder that his enemies made un- 
Hmited fun. And they professed to beheve that there was 
an issue here. When the elegant McClellan was moving 
heaven and earth, as he fancied, to get the army out of its 
shirt-sleeves, the President's manner was a cause of endless 
irritation. Still more serious was the effect of his manner 
on many men who agreed with him otherwise. Such a 
high-minded leader as Governor Andrew of Massachusetts 
never got over the feeling that Lincoln was a rowdy. How 
could a rowdy be the salvation of the country? In the 
dark days of 1864, when a rebellion against his leadership 
was attempted, this merely accidental side of him was an 
element of danger. The barrier it had created between 
himself and the more formal types, made it hard for the 
men who finally saved him to overcome their prejudice and 
nail his colors to the mast. Andrew's biographer shows 
himself a shrewd observer when he insists on the unex- 
pressed but inexorable scale by which Andrew and his fol- 
lowing measured Lincoln. They had grown up in the faith 
that you could tell a statesman by certain external signs, 
chiefly by a grandiose and commanding aspect such as made 
overpowering the presence of Webster. And this idea was 
not confined to any one locality. Everywhere, more or less, 
the conservative portion in every party held this view. It 
was the view of Washington in 1848 when Washington had 
failed to see the real Lincoln through his surface peculi- 
arities. It was again the view of Washington when Lincoln 
returned to it. 

Furthermore, his free way of talking, the broad stories 
he continued to tell, were made counts in his indictment. 
One of the bequests of Puritanism in America is the ideal, 
at least, of extreme scrupulousness in talk. To many sin- 








■•^■:,«^' 






,^Ar 






Mary Toikl Lincoln 



THE STRANGE NEW MAN 131 

cere men Lincoln's choice of fables was often a deadly 
offense. Charles Francis Adams never got over the shock 
of their first interview. Lincoln clenched a point with a 
broad story. Many professional politicians who had no 
objection to such talk in itself, glared and sneered when the 
President used it — because forsooth, it might estrange a 
vote. 

Then, too, Lincoln had none of the social finesse that 
might have adapted his manner to various classes. He was 
always incorrigibly the democrat pure and simple. He 
would have laughed uproariously over that undergraduate 
humor, the joy of a famous American University, sup- 
posedly strong on Democracy : 

"Where God speaks to Jones, in the very same tones, 
That he uses to Hadley and Dwight." 

Though Lincohi's queer aplomb, his good-humored 
familiarity on first acquaintance, delighted most of his visi- 
tors, it offended many. It was lacking in tact. Often it 
was a clumsy attempt to be jovial too soon, as when he 
addressed Greeley by the name of "Horace" almost on first 
sight. His devices for putting men on the familiar foot- 
ing lacked originality. The frequency with which he called 
upon a tall visitor to measure up against him reveals the 
poverty of his social invention. He applied this device with 
equal thoughtlessness to the stately Sumner, who protested, 
and to a nobody who grinned and was delighted. 

It was this mere envelope of the genius that was de- 
plorably evident on the journey from Springfield to Wash- 
ington. There was one detail of the journey that gave his 
enemies a more definite ground for sneering. By the irony 
of fate, the first clear instance of Lincoln's humility, his 



132 LINCOLN 

reluctance to set up his own judgment against his ad- 
visers, was also his first serious mistake. There is a dis- 
tinction here that is vital. Lincoln was entering on a new 
role, the role of the man of action. Hitherto all the great 
decisions of his life had been speculative; they had devel- 
oped from within; they dealt with ideas. The inflexible 
side of him was intellectual. Now, without any adequate 
apprenticeship, he was called upon to make practical de- 
cisions, to decide on courses of action, at one step to pass 
from the dream of statecraft to its application. Inevitably, 
for a considerable time, he was two people ; he passed back 
and forth from one to the other; only by degrees did he 
bring the two together. Meanwhile, he appeared contra- 
dictory. Inwardly, as a thinker, his development was un- 
broken; he was still cool, inflexible, drawing all his con- 
clusions out of the depths of himself. Outwardly, in action, 
he was learning the new task, hesitatingly, with vacillation, 
with excessive regard to the advisers whom he treated as 
experts in action. It was no slight matter for an extraor- 
dinarily sensitive man to take up a new role at fifty-two. 

This first official mistake of Lincoln's was in giving way 
to the fears of his retinue for his safety. The time had 
become hysterical. The wildest sort of stories filled the air. 
Even before he left Springfield there were rumors of plots 
to assassinate him.^ On his arrival at Philadelphia informa- 
tion was submitted to his companions which convinced them 
that his life was in danger — an attempt would be made to 
kill him as he passed through Baltimore. Seward at Wash- 
ington had heard the same story and had sent his son to 
Philadelphia to advise caution. Lincoln's friends insisted 
that he leave his special train and proceed to Washington 
with only one companion, on an ordinary night train. Rail- 



THE STRANGE NEW MAN 133 

way officials were called in. Elaborate precautions were 
arranged. The telegraph lines were all to be disconnected 
for a number of hours so that even if the conspirators — 
assuming there were any — should discover his change of 
plan, they would be unable to communicate with Baltimore. 
The one soldier in the party, Colonel Sumner, vehemently 
protested that these changes were all "a damned piece of 
cowardice." But Lincoln acquiesced in the views of the 
majority of his advisers. He passed through Baltimore 
virtually in disguise; nothing happened; no certain evidence 
of a conspiracy was discovered. And all his enemies took 
up the cry of cowardice and rang the changes upon it.'^ 

Meanwhile, despite all this semblance of indecision, of 
feebleness, there were signs that the real inner Lincoln, how- 
ever clouded, was still alive. By way of offset to his fatuous 
utterances, there might have been set, had the country been 
in a mood to weigh with care, several strong and clear pro- 
nouncements. And these were not merely telling phrases 
like that characteristic one about the bookkeeping of the 
front door. His mind was struggling out of its shadow. 
And the mode of its reappearance was significant. His 
reasoning upon the true meaning of the struggle he was 
about to enter, reached a significant stage in the speech 
he made at Harrisburg.^ 

"I have often inquired of myself," he said, "what great 
principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy [the 
United States] so long together. It was not the mere 
matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother- 
land, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Lidependence 
which gave liberty not alone to the people of the countiy 
but hope to all the world for all future time. It was that 
which gave promise that in due time the weights would 



134 LINCOLN 

be lifted from the shoulders of all men and that all should 
have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in 
the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can 
this country be saved on that basis? If it can, I will con- 
sider myself one of the happiest men in the world, if I can 
help to save it. If it can not be saved upon that principle, 
it will be truly awful. But if this country can not be saved 
without giving up that principle, I was about to say I 
would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender 
it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there 
is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for 
it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in 
advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it is forced 
upon the government. The government will not use force 
unless force is used against it." 

The two ideas underlying this utterance had grown in 
his thought steadily, consistently, ever since their first ap- 
pearance in the Protest twenty-four years previous. The 
great issue to which all else — slavery, "dominion status," 
ever3^hing — was subservient, was the preservation of demo- 
cratic institutions; the means to that end was the preserva- 
tion of the Federal government. Now, as in 1852, his 
paramount object was not to "disappoint the Liberal party 
throughout the world," to prove that Democracy, when 
applied on a great scale, had yet sufficient coherence to re- 
main intact, no matter how powerful, nor how plausible, 
were the forces of disintegration. 

Dominated by this purpose he came to Washington. 
There he met Seward. It was the stroke of fate for both 
men. Seward, indeed, did not know that it was. He was 
still firmly based in the delusion that he, not Lincoln, was 
the genius of the hour. And he had this excuse, that it 



THE STRANGE NEW MAN 135 

was also the country's delusion. There was pretty general 
belief both among friends and foes that Lincoln would be 
ruled by his Cabinet. In a council that was certain to 
include leaders of accepted influence — Seward, Chase, 
Cameron — what chance for this untried newcomer, whose 
prestige had been reared not on managing men, but on 
uttering words? In Seward's thoughts the answer was as 
inevitable as the table of addition. Equally mathematical 
was the conclusion that only one unit gave value to the 
combination. And, of course, the leader of the Republicans 
in the Senate was the unit. A severe experience had to be 
lived through before Seward made his peace with destiny. 
Lincoln was the quicker to perceive when they came to- 
gether that something had happened. Almost from the 
minute of their meeting, he began to lean upon Seward; but 
only in a certain way. This was not the same thing as that 
yielding to the practical advisers which began at Phila- 
delphia, which was subsequently to be the cause of so much 
confusion. His response to Seward was intellectual. It 
was of the inner man and revealed itself in his style of 
writing. 

Hitherto, Lincoln's progress in literature had been 
marked by the development of two characteristics and by 
the lack of a third. The two that he possessed were taste 
and rhythm. At the start he was free from the prevalent 
vice of his time, rhetoricality. His "Address to the Voters 
of Sangamon County" which was his first state paper, 
was as direct, as free from bombast, as the greatest of his 
later achievements. Almost any other youth who had as 
much of the sense of language as was there exhibited, 
would have been led astray by the standards of the hour, 
would have mounted the spread-eagle and flapped its wings 



136 LINCOLN 

in rhetorical clamor. But Lincoln was not precocious. In 
art, as in everything else, he progressed slowly; the literary 
part of him worked its way into the matter-of-fact part of 
him with the gradualness of the daylight through a 
shadowy wood. It was not constant in its development. 
For many years it was little more than an irregular deepen- 
ing of his two original characteristics, taste and rhythm. 
His taste, fed on Blackstone, Shakespeare, and the Bible, led 
him more and more exactingly to say just what he meant, 
to eschew the wiles of decoration, to be utterly non-rhetori- 
cal. His sense of rhythm, beginning simply, no more at 
first than a good ear for the sound of words, deepened into 
keen perception of the character of the word-march, of that 
extra significance which is added to an idea by the way it 
conducts itself, moving grandly or feebly as the case may 
be, from the unknown into the known, and thence across 
a perilous horizon, into memory. On the basis of these two 
characteristics he had acquired a style that was a rich blend 
of simplicity, directness, candor, joined with a clearness 
beyond praise, with a delightful cadence, having always a 
splendidly ordered march of ideas. 

But there was the third thing in which the earlier style 
of Lincoln's was wanting. Marvelously apt for the pur- 
pose of the moment, his writings previous to 1861 are 
vanishing from the world's memory. The more notable 
writings of his later years have become classics. And the 
difference does not turn on subject-matter. All the ideas 
of his late writings had been formulated in the earlier. The 
difference is purely literary. The earlier writings were keen, 
powerful, full of character, melodious, impressive. The later 
writings have all these qualities, and in addition, that con- 
stant power to awaken the imagination, to carry an idea 



THE STRANGE NEW MAN 137 

beyond its own horizon into a boundless world of imperish- 
able literary significance, which power in argumentative 
prose is beauty. And how did Lincoln attain this ? That he 
had been maturing from within the power to do this, one is 
compelled by the analogy of his other mental experiences 
to believe. At the same time, there can be no doubt who 
taught him the trick, who touched the secret spring and 
opened the new door to his mind. It was Seward. Long 
since it had been agreed between them that Seward was 
to be Secretary of State.^ Lincoln asked him to criticize 
his inaugural. Seward did so, and Lincoln, in the main, 
accepted his criticism. But Seward went further. He pro- 
posed a new paragraph. He was not a great writer and 
yet he had something of that third thing which Lincoln 
hitherto had not exhibited. However, in pursuing beauty 
of statement, he often came dangerously near to mere rhet- 
oric; his taste was never sure; his sense of rhythm was 
inferior; the defects of his qualities were evident. None 
the less, Lincoln saw at a glance that if he could infuse 
into Seward's words his own more robust qualities, the re- 
sult would be a richer product than had ever issued from his 
own qualities as hitherto he had known them. He effected 
this transmutation and in doing so raised his style to a 
new range of effectiveness. The great Lincoln of literature 
appeared in the first inaugural and particularly in that noble 
passage which was the work of Lincoln and Seward to- 
gether. In a way it said only what Lincoln had already 
said — especially in the speech at Harrisburg — but with what 
a difference ! 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and 
not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The 
government will not assail you. You can have no conflict 



138 LINCOLN 

without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no 
oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while 
I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and 
defend it. 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. 
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretch- 
ing from every battle-field and patriot grave, to every liv- 
ing heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet 
swell the chorus of the Union when again touched as surely 
they will be, by the better angels of our nature."* 

These words, now so famous, were spoken in the 
east portico of the Capitol on "one of our disagreeable, 
clear, windy, Washington spring days."^*^ Most of the par- 
ticipants were agitated; many were alarmed. Chief Justice 
Taney who administered the oath could hardly speak, so 
near to uncontrollable was his emotion. General Scott 
anxiously kept his eye upon the crowd which was com- 
manded by cannon. Cavalry were in readiness to clear 



*Lincoln VI, 184; N. & H., Ill, 343. Seward advised the omis- 
sion of part of the original draft of the first of these two paragraphs. 
After "defend it," Lincoln had written, "You can forbear the assault 
upon it. I can not shrink from the defense of it. With you and not 
with me is the solemn question 'Shall it be peace or a sword?'" Hav- 
ing struck this out, he accepted Seward's advice to add "some words 
of affection — some of calm and cheerful confidence." 

The original version of the concluding paragraph was prepared 
by Seward and read as follows: "I close. We are not, we must not 
be aliens or enemies, but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although 
passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, 
I am sure, they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, proceed- 
ing from so many battle-fields and so many patriot graves, pass 
through all the hearts and all hearths in this broad continent of 
ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed 
upon by the guardian angel of the nation." 



THE STRANGE NEW MAN 139 

the streets in case of riot. Lincoln's carriage on the way 
to the Capitol had been closely guarded. He made his 
way to the portico between files of soldiers. So intent — 
over-intent — were his guardians upon his safety that they 
had been careless of the smaller matter of his comfort. 
There was insufficient room for the large company that had 
been invited to attend. The new President stood beside 
a rickety little table and saw no place on which to put his 
hat. Senator Douglas stepped forward and relieved him of 
the burden. Lincoln was "pale and very nervous," and to- 
ward the close of his speech, visibly affected. Observers 
differ point-blank as to the way the inaugural was received. 
The "Public Man" says that there was little enthusiasm. 
The opposite version makes the event an oratorical triumph, 
with the crowd, at the close, completely under his spell. ^^ 
On the whole, the inauguration and the festivities that 
followed appear to have formed a dismal event. While 
Lincoln spoke, the topmost peak of the Capitol, far above 
his head, was an idle derrick; the present dome was in 
process of construction; work on it had been arrested, and 
who could say when, if ever, the work would be resumed? 
The day closed with an inaugural ball that was anything 
but brilliant. "The great tawdry ballroom . . . not 
half full — and such an assemblage of strange costumes, male 
and female. Very few people of any consideration were 
there. The President looked exhausted and uncomfortable, 
and most ungainly in his dress; and Mrs. Lincoln all in 
blue, with a feather in her hair and a highly flushed 
face . . ."12 



XV 

PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 

The brilliant Secretary, who so promptly began to influ- 
ence the President had very sure foundations for that influ- 
ence. He was inured to the role of great man; he had a 
rich experience of public life; while Lincoln, painfully con- 
scious of his inexperience, was perhaps the humblest- 
minded ruler that ever took the helm of a ship of state in 
perilous times. Furthermore, Seward had some priceless 
qualities which, for Lincoln, were still to seek. First of all, 
he had audacity — personally, artistically, politically. 
Seward's instantaneous gift to Lincoln was by way of 
throwing wide the door of his gathering literary audacity. 
There is every reason to think that Seward's personal 
audacity went to Lincoln's heart at once. To be sure, he 
was not yet capable of going along with it. The basal con- 
trast of the first month of his administration lies between 
the President's caution and the boldness of the Secretary. 
Nevertheless, to a sensitive mind, seeking guidance, sur- 
rounded by less original types of politicians, the splendid 
fearlessness of Seward, whether wise or foolish, must have 
rung like a trumpet peal soaring over the heads of a crowd 
whose teeth were chattering. While the rest of the Cabinet 
pressed their ears to the ground, Seward thought out a 
policy, made a forecast of the future, and offered to stake 
his head on the correctness of his reasoning. This may 
have been rashness; it may have been folly; but, intellect- 
ually at least, it was valor. Among Lincoln's other advisers, 

140 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 141 

valor at that moment was lacking. Contrast, however, was 
not the sole, nor the surest basis of Seward's appeal to Lin- 
coln. Their characters had a common factor. For all their 
immeasurable difference in externals, both at bottom were 
void of malice. It was this characteristic above all others 
that gave them spiritually common ground. In Seward, 
this quality had been under lire for a long while. The 
political furies of "that iron time" had failed to rouse echoes 
in his serene and smiling soul. Therefore, many men who 
accepted him as leader because, indeed, they could not do 
without him — because none other in their camp had his 
genius for management, for the glorification of political in- 
trigue — these same men followed him doubtfully, Avith bad 
grace, willing to shift to some other leader whenever he 
might arise. The clue to their distrust was Seward's amuse- 
ment at the furious. Could a man who laughed when you 
preached on the beauty of the hewing of Agag, could such 
a man be sincere ? And that Seward in some respects was 
not sincere, history generally admits. He loved to poke 
fun at his opponents by appearing to sneer at himself, by 
ridiculing the idea that he was ever serious. His scale of 
political values was different from that of most of his fol- 
lowers. Nineteen times out of twenty, he would treat what 
they termed "principles" as mere political counters, as legiti- 
mate subjects of bargain. If by any deal he could trade off 
any or all of these nineteen in order to secure the twentieth, 
which for him was the only vital one, he never scrupled to 
do so. Against a lurid background of political ferocity, this 
amused, ironic figure came to be rated by the extremists, 
both in his own and in the enemy camp as jMephistopheles. 

No quality could have endeared him more certainly to 
Lincoln than the very one which the bigots misunderstood. 



142 LINCOLN 

From his earliest youth Lincohi had been governed by this 
same quality. With his non-censorious mind, which accepted 
so much of life as he found it, which was forever stripping 
principles of their accretions, what could be more inevitable 
than his warming to the one great man at Washington 
who like him held that such a point of view was the only 
rational one. Seward's ironic peacefulness in the midst of 
the storm gained in luster because all about him raged a 
tempest of ferocity, mitigated, at least so far as the dis- 
tracted President could see, only by self-interest or pacifism. 
As Lincoln came into office, he could see and hear many 
signs of a rising fierceness of sectional hatred. His sec- 
retary records wath disgust a proposal to conquer the Gulf 
States, expel their white population, and reduce the region 
to a gigantic state preserve, where negroes should grow cot- 
ton under national supervision.^ "We of the North," said 
Senator Baker of Oregon, "are a majority of the Union, 
and we will govern our Union in our own way."^ At the 
other extreme was the hysterical pacifism of the Abolition- 
ists. Part of Lincoln's abiding quarrel with the Abolitionists 
was their lack of national feeling. Their peculiar form of 
introspection had injected into politics the idea of personal 
sin. Their personal responsibility for slavery — they being 
part of a country that tolerated it — was their basal inspira- 
tion. Consequently, the most distinctive Abolitionists wel- 
comed this opportunity to cast off their responsibility. If 
war had been proposed as a crusade to abolish slavery, their 
attitude might have been dift'erent. But in March, i860, 
no one but the few ultra-extremists, whom scarcely anybody 
heeded, dreamed of such a war. A war to restore the 
Union was the only sort that was considered seriously. Such 
a war, the Abolitionists bitterly condemned. They seized 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 143 

upon pacifism as their defense. Said Wliittier of the Seced- 
ing States : 

They break the links of Union : shall we light 
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain, 
On that red anvil where each blow is pain ? 

The fury and the fear offended Lincoln in equal meas- 
ure. After long years opposing the political temper of the 
extremists, he was not the man now to change front. To 
one who believed himself marked out for a tragic end, the 
cowardice at the heart of the pacifism of his time was 
revolting. It was fortunate for his own peace of mind 
that he could here count on the Secretary of State. No 
argument based on fear of pain would meet in Seward 
with anything but derision. "They tell us," he had once 
said, and the words expressed his constant attitude, "that 
we are to encounter opposition. Why, bless my soul, did 
anybody ever expect to reach a fortune, or fame, or happi- 
ness on earth or a crown in heaven, without encountering re- 
sistance and opposition? What are we made men for 
but to encounter and overcome opposition arrayed against 
us in the hne of our duty?"^ 

But if the ferocity and the cowardice were offensive and 
disheartening, there was something else that was beneath 
contempt. Never was self-interest more shockingly dis- 
played. It was revealed in many ways, but impinged upon 
the new President in only one. A horde of office-seekers 
besieged him in the White House. The parallel to this amaz- 
ing picture can hardly be found in history. It was taken 
for granted that the new party would make a clean sweep 
of the whole civil list, that every government employee 
down to the humblest messenger boy too youn§ to have 



144 LINCOLN 

political ideas was to bear the label of the victorious party. 
Every Congressman Vv'ho had made promises to his con- 
stituents, every politician of every grade who thought he 
had the party in his debt, every adventurer who on any 
pretext could make a showing of party service rendered, 
poured into Washington. It was a motley horde : 

"Hark, hark, the dogs do bark. 
The beggars are coming to town." 

They converted the White House into a leaguer. They 
swarmed into the corridors and even the private passages. 
So dense was the swarni that it was difficult to make one's 
way either in or out. Lincoln described himself by the 
image of a man renting rooms at one end of his house while 
the other end was on fire.^ And all this while the existence 
of the Republic was at stake ! It did not occur to him that it 
was safe to defy the horde, to send it about its business. 
Here again, the figure of Seward stood out in brilliant light 
against the somber background. One of Seward's faculties 
was his power to fonn devoted lieutenants. He had that 
sure and nimble judgment which enables some men to in- 
spire their lieutenants rather than categorically to instruct 
them. All the sordid side of his political games he managed 
in this way. He did not appear himself as the bargainer. 
In the shameful eagerness of most of the politicians to find 
offices for their retainers, Seward was conspicuous by con- 
trast. Even the Cabinet was not free from this vice of 
catering to the thirsty horde.^ Alone, at this juncture, 
Seward detached himself from the petty affairs of the hour 
and gave his whole attention to statecraft. 

He had a definite policy. Another point of contact with 
Lincoln was the attitude of both toward the Union, supple- 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 145 

mented as it was by their views of the place of slavery in the 
problem they confronted. Both were nationalists ready to 
make any sacrifices for the national idea. Both regarded 
slavery as an issue of second importance. Both were pre- 
pared for great concessions if convinced that, ultimately, 
their concessions would strengthen the trend of American 
life toward a general exaltation of nationality. 

On the other hand, their differences — 

Seward approached the problem in the same temper, 
with the same assumptions, that were his in the previous 
December. He still believed that his main purpose was to 
enable a group of politicians to save their faces by effecting 
a strategic retreat. Imputing to the Southern leaders an 
attitude of pure self-interest, he believed that if allowed to 
play the game as they desired, they would mark time until 
circumstances revealed to them whether there was more 
profit for them in the Union or out; he also believed that 
if sufficient time could be given, and If no armed clash took 
place, it would be demonstrated first, that they did not have 
so strong a hold on the South as they had thought they 
had; and second, that on the whole, it was to their interests 
to patch up the quarrel and come back into the Union. 
But he also saw that they had a serious problem of leader- 
ship, which, if rudely handled, might make it impossible 
for them to stand still. They had inflamed the sentiment 
of state-patriotism. In South Carolina, particularly, the 
popular demand was for independence. With this went 
the demand that Fort Sumter in Charleston Hartor, garri- 
soned by Federal troops, should be surrendered, or if not 
surrendered, taken forcibly from the United States. A few 
cannon shots at Sumter would mean war. 

An article in Seward's creed of statecraft asserted that 



146 LINCOLN 

the populace will always go wild over a war. To prevent 
a war fever in the North was the first condition of his 
policy at home. Therefore, in order to prevent it, the first 
step in saving his enemies' faces was to safeguard them 
against the same danger in their own camp. He must help 
them to prevent a war fever in the South. He saw but 
one way to do this. The conclusion which became the bed 
rock of his policy was inevitable. Sumter must be 
evacuated. 

Even before the inauguration, he had broached this idea 
to Lincoln. He had tried to keep Lincoln from inserting 
in the inaugural the words, "The power confided to me will 
be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places 
belonging to the government." He had proposed instead, 
"The power confided in me shall be used indeed with efiicacy, 
but also with discretion, in every case and exigency, accord- 
ing to the circumstances actually existing, and with a view 
and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, 
and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and afi^ec- 
tions."^ With the rejection of Seward's proffered revision, 
a difference between them in policy began to develop. Lin- 
coln, says one of his secretaries, accepted Seward's main 
purpose but did not share his "optimism."'^ It would be 
truer to say that in this stage of his development, he was 
lacking in audacity. In his eager search for advice, he had 
to strike a balance between the daring Seward who at this 
moment built entirely on his own power of political devina- 
tion, and the cautious remainder of the Cabinet who had 
their ears to the ground trying their best to catch the note 
of authority in the rumblings of vox populi. For his own 
part, Lincoln began with two resolves : to go very cautiously, 
and not give something for nothing. Far from him, as 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 147 

yet, was that plunging mood which in Seward pushed 
audacity to the verge of a gamble. 

However, just previous to the inauguration, he took a 
cautious step in Seward's direction. Virginia, like all die 
other States of the upper South, was torn by the question 
which side to take. There was a "Union" party in Vir- 
ginia, and a "Secession" party. A committee of leading 
Unionists conferred with Lincoln. They saw the imme- 
diate problem very much as Seward did. They believed 
that if time were allowed, the crisis could be tided over and 
the Union restored ; but the first breath of war would wreck 
their hopes. The condition of bringing about an adjust- 
ment was the evacuation of Sumter. Lincoln told them 
that if Virginia could be kept in the Union by the evacua- 
tion of Sumter, he would not hesitate to recall the garri- 
son.^ A few days later, despite wdiat he had said in the 
inaugural, he repeated this offer. A convention was then 
sitting at Richmond in debate upon the relations of Virginia 
to the Union. If it would drop the matter and dissolve — 
so Lincoln told another committee — he would evacuate 
Sumter and trust the recovery of the lower South to 
negotiation.^ No results, so far as is known, came of 
either of those offers. 

During the first half of March, the Washington gov- 
ernment marked tim.e. The office-seekers continued to be- 
siege the President. South Carolina continued to clamor 
for possession of Sumter. The Confederacy sent commis- 
sioners to Washington whom Lincoln refused to recognize. 
The Virginia Convention swayed this way and that. 

Seward went serenely about his business, confident that 
everything was certain to come his way soon or late. He 
went so far as to advise an intermediary to tell the Con- 



148 LINCOLN 

federate Commissioners that all they had to do to get pos- 
session of Sumter was to wait. The rest of the Cabinet 
pressed their ears more tightly than ever to the ground. 
The rumblings of vox populi were hard to interpret. The 
North appeared to be in two minds. This was revealed 
the day following the inauguration, when a Republican Club 
in New York held a high debate upon the condition of the 
country. One faction wanted Lincoln to declare for a war 
policy; another wished the Club to content itself with a 
vote of confidence in the Administration. Each faction put 
its views into a resolution and as a happy device for main- 
taining harmony, both resolutions were passed. ^*^ The frag- 
mentary, miscellaneous evidence of newspapers, political 
meetings, the talk of leaders, local elections, formed a con- 
fused clamor which each listener interpreted according to 
his predisposition. The members of the Cabinet in their 
relative isolation at Washington found it exceedingly diffi- 
cult to make up their minds what the people were really 
saying. Of but one thing they were certain, and that was 
that they represented a minority party. Before committing 
themselves any way, it vv'as life and death to know what 
portion of the North would stand by them.^^ 

At this point began a perplexity that was to tomient the 
President almost to the verge of distraction. How far could 
he trust his military advisers? Old General Scott was at 
the head of the arm}^ He had once been a striking, if not 
a great figure. Should his military advice be accepted as 
final? Scott informed Lincoln that Sumter was short of 
food and that any attempt to relieve it would call for a 
much larger force than the government could muster. 
Scott urged him to withdraw the garrison. Lincoln sub- 
mitted the matter to the Cabinet. He asked for their 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 149 

opinions in writing.^- Five advised taking Scott at his 
word and giving up all thought of reheving Sumter. There 
were two dissenters. The Secretary of the Treasury, Sal- 
mon Portland Chase, struck the key-note of his later polit- 
ical career by an elaborate argument on expediency. If re- 
lieving Sumter would lead to civil war, Chase was not in 
favor of relief; but on the whole he did not think that civil 
war would result, and therefore, on the whole, he favored a 
relief expedition. One member of the Cabinet, Montgom- 
ery Blair, the Postmaster General, an impetuous, fierce man, 
was vehement for relief at all costs. Lincoln wanted to 
agree with Qiase and Blair. He reasoned that if the fort 
was given up "the necessity under which it was done would 
not be fully understood ; that by many it would be construed 
as part of a voluntary policy, that at home it would dis- 
courage the friends of the Union, embolden its adver- 
saries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition 
abroad. . . ." 

Nevertheless, with the Cabinet five to two against him, 
with his military adviser against him, Lincoln put aside 
his own views. The government went on marking time 
and considering the credentials of applicants for country 
post-offices. 

By this time, Lincoln had thrown off the overpowering 
gloom which possessed him in the latter days at Springfield. 
It is possible he had reacted to a mood in which there was 
something of levity. His oscillation of mood from a gloom 
that nothing penetrated to a sort of desperate mirth, has 
been noted by various observers. And in 1861 he had not 
reached his final poise, that firm holding of the middle way, 
which afterward fused his moods and made of him, at 
least in action, a sustained personality. 



ISO LINCOLN 

About the middle of the month he had a famous inter- 
view with Colonel W. T. Sherman who had been President 
of the University of Louisiana and had recently resigned. 
Senator John Sherman called at the White House with re- 
gard to "some minor appointments in Ohio." The Colonel 
went with him. When Colonel Sherman spoke of the 
seriousness of the Secession movement, Lincoln replied, 
"Oh, we'll manage to keep house." The Colonel was so 
offended b}^ what seemed to him the flippancy of the Presi- 
dent that he abandoned his intention to resume the military 
life and withdrew from Washington in disgust.^^ 

Not yet had Lincoln attained a true appreciation of the 
real difficulty before him. He had not got rid of the idea 
that a dispute over slavery had widened accidentally into a 
needless sectional quarrel, and that as soon as the South 
had time to think things over, it would see that it did not 
really want the quarrel. He had a queer idea that mean- 
while he could hold a few points on the margin of the 
Seceded States, open custom houses on ships at the mouths 
of harbors, but leave vacant all Federal appointments within 
the Seceded States and ignore the absence of their represen- 
tatives from Washington.^'* This marginal policy did not 
seem to him a policy of coercion; and though he was be- 
ginning to see that the situation from the Southern point 
of view turned on the right of a State to resist coercion, he 
was yet to learn that idealistic elements of emotion and of 
poHtical dogma were the larger part of his difficulty. 

Meanwhile, the upper South had been proclaiming its 
idealism. Its attitude was creating a problem for the lower 
South as well as for the North. The pro-slavery leaders 
had been startled out of a dream. The belief in a Southern 
economic solidarity so complete that the secession of any 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 151 

one Slave State would compel the secession of all the others, 
that belief had been proved fallacious. It had been made 
plain that on the economic issue, even as on the issue of 
sectional distrust, the upper South would not follow the 
lower South into secession. When delegates from the 
Georgia Secessionists visited the legislature of North Caro- 
lina, every courtesy was shown to them; the Speaker of the 
House assured them of North Carolina's sympathy and of 
her enduring friendliness; but he was careful not to suggest 
an intention to secede, unless (the condition that w^as des- 
tiny!) an attempt should be made to violate the sovereignty 
of the State by marching troops across her soil to attack the 
Confederates. Then, on the one issue of State sovereignty, 
North Carolina would leave the Union.^^ The Unionists in 
Virginia took similar ground. They wished to stay in the 
Union, and they were determined not to go out on the issue 
of slavery. Therefore they laid their heads together to 
get that issue out of the way. Their problem was to devise 
a compromise that would do three things : lay the Southern 
dread of an inundation of sectional Northern influence; 
silence the slave profiteers; meet the objections that had 
induced Lincoln to wreck the Crittenden Compromise. 
They felt that the first and second objectives would be 
reached easily enough by reviving the line of the Missouri 
Compromise. But something more was needed, or again, 
Lincoln would refuse to negotiate. They met their crucial 
difficulty by boldly appealing to the South to be satisfied 
with the conservation of its present life and renounce the 
dream of unlimited Southern expansion. Their Compro- 
mise proposed a death blow to the filibuster and all he stood 
for. It provided that no new territory other than naval 
stations should be acquired by the United States on either 



152 LINCOLN 

side the Missouri Line without consent of a majority of 
the Senators from the States on the opposite side of that 
line.^^ 

As a solution of the sectional quarrel, to the extent that 
it had been definitely put into words, what could have been 
more astute? Lincoln himself had said in the inaugural, 
"One section of our country believes slavery is right and 
ought to be extended; while the odier believes it is wrong 
and ought not to be extended. That is the only substantial 
dispute." In the same inaugural, he had pledged himself 
not to "interfere with the institution of slavery in the States 
where it now exists;" and also had urged a vigorous en- 
yforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. He never had ap- 
y proved of any sort of emancipation other than purchase or 
the gradual operation of economic conditions. It was well 
known that slavery could flourish only on fresh land amid 
prodigal agricultural methods suited to the most ignorant 
labor. The Virginia Compromise, by giving to slavery a 
fixed area and abolishing its hopes of continual extensions 
into fresh land, was the virtual fulfillment of Lincoln's 
demand. 

The failure of th-^ Virginia Compromise is one more 
proof that a great deal of vital history never gets into words 
until after it is over. During the second half of March, 
Unionists and Secessionists in the Virginia Convention de- 
bated with deep emotion this searching new proposal. The 
Unionists had a fatal weakness in their position. This was 
the feature of the situation that had not hitherto been put 
into words. Lincoln had not been accurate when he said 
that the slavery question was "the only substantial dispute." 
He had taken for granted that the Southern opposition to 
nationalism was not a real thing, — a mere device of the poll- 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 153 

ticians to work up excitement. Al\ the compromises he 
was ready to offer were addressed to that part of the South 
which was seeking to make an issue on slavery. They had 
little meaning for that other and more numerous part in 
whose thinking slavery was an incident. For this other 
South, the ideas which Lincoln as late as the middle of 
March did not bring into play were the whole story. Lin- 
coln, willing to give all sorts of guarantees for the non- 
interference with slavery, would not give a single guarantee 
supporting the idea of State sovereignty against the idea 
of the sovereign power of the national Union. The Vir- 
ginians, willing to go great lengths in making concessions 
with regard to slavery, would not go one inch in the way 
of admitting that their State was not a sovereign power 
included in the American Union of its own free will, and 
not the legitimate subject of any sort of coercion. 

The Virginia Compromise was really a profound new 
complication. The very care with which it divided the issue 
of nationality from the issue of slavery was a storm signal. 
For a thoroughgoing nationalist like Lincoln, deep perplexi- 
ties lay hidden in this full disclosure of the issue that was 
vital to the moderate South. Lincoln's shifting of his mental 
ground, his perception that hitherto he had been oblivious of 
his most formidable opponent, the one with whom compro- 
mise was impossible, occurred in the second half of the 
month. 

As always, Lincoln kept his own counsel upon the 
maturing of a purpose in his own mind. He listened to 
every adviser — opening his office doors without reserve to 
all sorts and conditions — and silently, anxiously, struggled 
with himself for a decision. He watched Virginia; he 
watched the North; he listened — and waited. General 



154 LINCOLN 

Scott continued hopeless, though minor military men gave 
encouragement. And whom should the President trust — 
the tired old General who disagreed with him, or the eager 
young men who held views he would like to hold? Many 
a time he was to ask himself that question during the years 
to come. 

On March twenty-ninth, he again consulted the Cabi- 
net.^^ A great deal of water had run under the mill since 
they gave their opinions on March sixteenth. The voice 
of the people was still a bewildering roar, but out of that 
roar most of the Cabinet seemed to hear definite words. 
They were convinced that the North was veering toward 
a warlike mood. The phrase "masterly inactivity," which 
had been applied to the government's course admiringly a 
few weeks before, was now being applied satirically. Re- 
publican extremists were demanding action. A subtle 
barometer was the Secretary of the Treasury. Now, as on 
the sixteenth, he craftily said something without saying it. 
> After juggling the word "if," he assumed his "if" to be a 
^ fact and concluded, "If war is to be the result, I perceive 
no reason why it may not best be begun in consequence of 
military resistance to the efforts of the Administration to 
sustain troops of the Union, stationed under authority of 
the government in a fort of the Union, in the ordinary 
course of service." 
I This elaborate equivocation, which had all the force of 

an assertion, was Chase all over! Three other ministers 
agreed with him except that they did not equivocate. One 
evaded. Of all those who had stood with Seward on the 
sixteenth, only one was still in favor of evacuation. Seward 
stood fast. This reversal of the Cabinet's position, jump- 
ing as it did with Lincoln's desires, encouraged him to pre- 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 155 

pare for action. But jnst as he was about to act his diffi- 
dence asserted itself. He authorized the preparation of a 
rehef expedition but withheld sailing orders until further 
notice.^^ Oh, for Seward's audacity; for the ability to do 
one thing or another and take the consequences ! 

Seward had not foreseen this turn of events. He had 
little respect for the rest of the Cabinet, and had still to 
discover that the President, for all his semblance of vacil- 
lation, was a great man. Seward was undeniably vain. 
That the President with such a Secretary of State should 
judge the strength of a Cabinet vote by counting noses- 
preposterous ! But that was just what this curiously simple- 
minded President had done. If he went on in his weak, 
amiable way listening to the time-servers who were listen- 
ing to the bigots, what would become of the country? And 
of the Secretary of State and his deep policies? The 
President must be pulled up short — brought to his senses — 
taught a lesson or two. 

Seward saw that new difficulties had arisen in the course 
of that fateful IMarch which those colleagues of his in the 
Cabinet— well-meaning, inferior men, to be sure — had not 
the subtlety to comprehend. Of course the matter of evac- 
uation remained what it always had been, the plain open 
road to an ultimate diplomatic triumph. Who but a presi- 
dent out of the West, or a minor member of the Cabinet, 
would fail to see that ! But there were two other considera- 
tions which, also, his well-meaning colleagues were failing 
to allow for. While all this talk about the Virginia Union- 
ists had been going on, while Washington and Richmond 
had been trying to negotiate, neither really had any control 
of its own game. They were card players with all the 
trumps out of their hands. Montgomery, the Confederate 



156 LINCOLN 

Congress, held the trumps. At any minute it could termi- 
nate all this make-believe of diplomatic independence, both 
at Washington and at Richmond. A few cannon shots 
aimed at Sumter, the cry for revenge in the North, the 
inevitable protest against coercion in Virginia, the conven- 
tion blown into the air, and there you are — War! 

And after all that, who knows what next? And yet, 
Blair and Chase and the rest would not consent to slip Mont- 
gomery's trumps out of her hands — the easiest thing in the 
world to do ! — by throwing Sumter into her lap and thus 
destroying the pretext for the cannon shots. More than 
ever before, Seward would insist firmly on the evacuation 
of Sumter. 

But there was the other consideration, the really new 
turn of events. Suppose Sumter is evacuated; suppose 
Montgomery has lost her chance to force Virginia into war 
by precipitating the issue of coercion, what follows? All 
along Seward had advocated a national convention to read- 
just all the matters "in dispute between the sections." But 
what would such a convention discuss? Li his inaugural, 
Lincoln had advised an amendment to the Constitution "to 
the effect that the Federal government shall never interfere 
with the domestic institutions of the State, including that of 
persons held to service." Very good! The convention 
might be expected to accept this, and after this, of course, 
there would come up the Virginia Compromise. Was it a 
practical scheme? Did it form a basis for drawing back 
into the Union the lower South ? 

Seward's whole thought upon this subject has never been 
disclosed. It must be inferred from the conclusion which 
he reached, which he put into a paper entitled, Thoughts 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 157 

for the President' s Consideration, and submitted to Lincoln, 
April first. 

The Thoughts outlined a scheme of policy, the most 
startling feature of which was an instant, predatory, foreign 
war. There are two clues to this astounding proposal. 
One was a political maxim in which Seward had unwavering 
faith, "A fundamental principle of politics," he said, "is 
always to be on the side of your country in a war. It kills 
any party to oppose a war. When Mr. Buchanan got up his 
]\Iormon War, our people. Wade and Fremont, and The 
Tribune, led off furiously against it. I supported it to the 
immense disgust of enemies and friends. If you want to 
sicken your opponents with their own war, go in for it till 
they give it up."^^ He was not alone among the politicians 
of his time, and some other times, in these cynical views. 
Lincoln has a story of a politician who was asked to oppose 
the Mexican War, and who replied, "I opposed one war; 
that was enough for me. I am now perpetually in favor 
of war, pestilence and famine." 

The second clue to Seward's new policy of international 
brigandage was the need, as he conceived it, to propitiate 
those Southern expansionists who in the lower South at 
least formed so large a part of the political machine, who 
must somehow be lured back into the Union; to whom the 
Virginia Compromise, as well as every other scheme of 
readjustment yet suggested, offered no allurement. Like 
Lincoln defeating the Crittenden Compromise, like the Vir- 
ginians planning the last compromise, Seward remembered 
the filibusters and the dreams of the expansionists, annexa- 
tion of Cuba, annexation of Nicaragua and all the rest, and 
he looked about for a way to reach them along that line. 



158 LINCOLN 

Chance had played into his hands. Alread}^ Napoleon III 
had begun his ill-fated interference with the affairs of Mex- 
ico. A rebellion had just taken place in San Domingo and 
Spain was supposed to have designs on the island. Here, for 
any one who believed in predatory war as an infallible last 
recourse to rouse the patriotism of a country, were pretexts 
enough. Along with these would go a raging assertion of 
the Monroe Doctrine and a bellicose attitude toward other 
European powers on less substantial grounds. And amid 
it all, between the lines of it all, could not any one glimpse 
a scheme for the expansion of the United States southward? 
War with Spain over San Domingo! And who, pray, held 
the Island of Cuba! And what might not a defeated Spain 
be willing to do with Cuba? And if France were driven 
out of Mexico by our conquering arms, did not the shadows 
of the future veil but dimly a grateful Mexico where 
American capital should find great opportunities? And 
would not Southern capital in the nature of things, have a 
large share in all that was to come? Surely, granting 
Seward's political creed, remembering the problem he wished 
to solve, there is nothing to be wondered at in his proposal 
to Lincoln : "1 would demand explanations from Spain and 
France, categorically, at once." . . . And if satisfactory 
explanations were not received from Spain and France, 
"would convene Congress and declare war against them." 

His purpose, he said, was to change the question before 
the public, from one upon slavery, or about slavery, for a 
question upon Union or Disunion. Sumter was to be evac- 
uated "as a safe means for changing the issue," but at the 
same time, preparations were to be made for a bjockade of 
the Southern coast.^'' 

This extraordinary document administered mild but firm 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 159 

correction to the President. He was told that he had no 
pohcy, akhough under the circumstances, this was "not 
culpable" ; that there must be a single head to the govern- 
ment; that the President, if not equal to the task, should 
devolve it upon some member of the Cabinet. The 
Thoughts closed with these words, "I neither seek to 
evade nor assume responsibility." 

Like Seward's previous move, when he sent Weed to 
Springfield, this other brought Lincoln to a point of crisis. 
For the second time he must render a decision that would 
turn the scale, that would have for his country the force 
of destiny. In one respect he did not hesitate. The most 
essential part of the Thoughts was the predatory spirit. 
This clashed with Lincoln's character. Serene unscrupu- 
lousness met unwavering integrity. Here was one of those 
subjects on which Lincoln was not asking advice. As to 
ways and means, he was pliable to a degree in the hands of 
richer and wider experience ; as to principles, he was a rock. 
Seward's whole scheme of aggrandizement, his magnificent 
piracy, was calmly waved aside as a thing of no concern. 
The most striking characteristic of Lincoln's reply was 
its dignity. He did not, indeed, lay bare his purposes. He 
was content to point out certain inconsistencies in Seward's 
argument; to protest that whatever action might be taken 
with regard to the single fortress, Sumter, the question be- 
fore the public could not be changed by that one event ; and 
to say that while he expected advice from all his Cabinet, 
he was none the less President, and in last resort he would 
himself direct the policy of the government."^ 

Only a strong man could have put up with the patroniz- 
ing condescension of the Thoughts and betrayed no irrita- 
tion. Not a word in Lincoln's reply gives the least hint that 



i6o LINCOLN 

condescension had been displayed. He is wholly unruffled, 
distant, objective. There is also a quiet tone of finality, 
almost the tone one might use in gently but firmly correcting 
a child. The Olympian impertinence of the Thoughts 
had struck out of Lincoln the first flash of that approaching 
masterfulness by means of which he was to ride out success- 
fully such furious storms. Seward was too much the man 
of the world not to see what had happened. Hg never 
touched upon the Thoughts again. Nor did Lincoln. 
The incident was secret until Lincoln's secretaries twenty- 
five years afterward published it to the world. 
— But Lincoln's lofty dignity on the first of April was of 
a moment only. When the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon 
Welles, that same day called on him in his offices, he was 
the easy-going, jovial Lincoln who was always ready half- 
humorously to take reproof from subordinates — as was 
evinced by his greeting to the Secretary. Looking up from 
his writing, he said cheerfully, "What have I done 
wrong ?"^- Gideon Welles was a pugnacious man, and at 
that moment an angry man. There can be little doubt that 
his lips were tightly shut, that a stern frown darkened his 
brows. Grimly conscientious was Gideon Welles, likewise 
prosaic; a masterpiece of literalness, the very opposite in 
almost every respect of the Secretary of State whom he 
cordially detested. That he had already found occasion to 
protest against the President's careless mode of conducting 
business may be guessed — correctly — from the way he was 
received. Doubtless the very cordiality, the whimsical ad- 
mission of loose methods, irritated the austere Secretary. 
Welles had in his hand a communication dated that same 
day and signed by the President, making radical changes in 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER i6i 

the program of the Navy Department. He had come to 
protest. 

"The President," said Welles, "expressed as much sur- 
prise as I felt, that he had sent me such a document. He 
said that Mr. Seward with two or three young men had been 
there during the day on a subject which he (Seward) had 
in hand and which he had been some time maturing; that 
it was Seward's specialty, to which he, the President, had 
yielded, but as it involved considerable details, he had left 
Mr. Seward to prepare the necessary papers. These papers 
he had signed, many of them without reading, for he had 
not time, and if he could not trust the Secretary of State, 
he knew not whom he could trust. I asked who were 
associated with Mr. Seward. 'No one,' said the President, 
'but these young men who were here as clerks to write down 
his plans and orders.' Most of the work was done, he said, 
in the other room. 

"The President reiterated that they [the changes in the 
Navy] were not his instructions, though signed by him; 
that the paper was an improper one; that he wished me to 
give it no more consideration than I thought proper; to 
treat it as cancelled, or as if it had never been written. 
I could get no satisfactory explanation from the 
President of the origin of this strange interference which 
mystified him and which he censured and condemned more 
severely than myself. . . . Although very much dis- 
turbed by the disclosure, he was anxious to avoid difficulty, 
and to shield Mr. Seward, took to himself the whole 
blame. . . ." 

Thus Lincoln began a role that he never afterward ' 
abandoned. It was the role of scapegoat. Whatever went 



i62 LINCOLN 

I wrong anywhere could always be loaded upon the President. 

/ He appeared to consider it a part of his duty to be the scape- 
goat for the whole Administration, It was his way of main- 
taining trust, courage, efficiency, among his subordinates. 

Of those papers which he had signed without reading 
on April first, Lincoln was to hear again in still more sur- 
prising fashion six days thereafter. 

He was now at the very edge of his second crucial de- 
cision. Though the naval expedition was in preparation, 
he still hesitated over issuing orders to sail. The reply to 
the Thoughts had not committed him to any specific line 
of conduct. What was it that kept him wavering at this 
eleventh hour? Again, that impenetrable taciturnity which 
always shrouded his progress toward a conclusion, forbids 
dogmatic assertion. But two things are obvious: his posi- 
tion as a minority president, of which he was perhaps 
unduly conscious, caused him to delay, and to delay again 
and again, seeking definite evidence how much support he 
could command in the North; the change in his compre- 
hension of the problem before him — his perception that it 
was not an "artificial crisis" involving slavery alone, but an 
irreconcilable clash of social-political ideals^ — this disturbed 
his spirit, distressed, even appalled him. Having a truer 
insight into human nature than Seward had, he saw that 
here was an issue immeasurably less susceptible of compro- 
mise than was slavery. Whether, the moment he perceived 
this, he at once lost hope of any peaceable solution, we do 
not know. Just what he thought about the Virginia Com- 
promise is still to seek. However, the nature of his mind, 
the way it went straight to the human element in a problem 
once his eyes were opened to the problem's reality, forbid 
us to conclude that he took hope from Virginia. He now 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 163 

saw what, had it not been for his near horizon, he would 
have seen so long before, that, in vulgar parlance, he had 
been "barking up the wrong tree." Now that he had lo- 
cated the right tree, had the knowledge come too late ? 

It is known that Seward, possibly at Lincoln's request, 
made an attempt to bring together the Virginia Unionists 
and the Administration. He sent a special representative 
to Richmond urging the despatch of a committee to confer 
with the President. 

The strength of the party in the Convention was shown 
on April fourth when a proposed Ordinance of Secession 
was voted down, eighty-nine to forty-five. On the same 
day, the Convention by a still larger majority formally de- 
nied the right of the Federal government to coerce a State. 
Two days later, John B. Baldwin, representing the Virginia 
Unionists, had a confidential talk with Lincoln. Only frag- 
ments of tlicir talk, drawn forth out of memory long 
afterward — some of the reporting being at second hand, the 
recollections of the recollections of the participants — are 
known to exist. The one fact clearly discernible is that 
Baldwin stated fully the Virginia position : that her Union- 
ists were not nationalists; that the coercion of any State, 
by impugning the sovereignty of all, would automatically 
drive Virginia out of the Union.^^ 

Lincoln had now reached his decision. The fear that 
had dogged him all along — the fear that in evacuating 
Sumter he would be giving something for nothing, that "it 
would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its 
adversaries" — was in possession of his will. One may 
hazard the guess that this fear would have determined Lin- 
coln sooner than it did, except for the fact that the Secretary 
of State, despite his faults, was so incomparably the strong- 



i64 UNCOLN 

est personality in the Cabinet. We have Lincohi's own 
word for the moment and the detail that formed the very 
end of his period of vacillation. All along he had intended 
to relieve and hold Fort Pickens, off the coast of Florida. 
To this, Seward saw no objection. In fact, he urged the 
relief of Pickens, hoping, as compensation, to get his way 
about Sumter. Assuming as he did that the Southern leaders 
were opportunists, he believed that they would not make an 
issue over Pickens, merely because it had not in the public 
eye become a political symbol. Orders had been sent to a 
squadron in Southern waters to relieve Pickens. Early in 
April news was received at Washington that the attempt 
had failed due to misunderstandings among the Federal 
commanders. Fearful that Pickens was about to fall, rea- 
soning that whatever happened he dared not lose both forts, 
Lincoln became peremptory on the subject of the Sumter 
expedition. This was on April sixth. On the night of 
April sixth, Lincoln's signatures to the unread despatches 
of the first of April, came home to roost. And at last, 
Welles found out what Seward was doing on the day of 
All Fools.-^ 

While the Sumter expedition was being got ready, still 
without sailing orders, a supplemental expedition was also 
preparing for the relief of Pickens. This was the business 
that Seward was contriving, that Lincoln would not explain, 
on April first. The order interfering with the Navy De- 
partment was designed to checkmate the titular head of the 
department. Furthermore, Seward had had the amazing 
coolness to assume that Lincoln would certainly accept his 
Thoughts and that the simple President need not here- 
after be consulted about details. He aimed to circumvent 
Welles and to make sure that the Sumter expedition, 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 165 

whether sailing orders were issued or not, should be ren- 
dered innocuous. The warship Powhatan, which was being 
got ready for sea at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was intended 
by Welles for the Sumter expedition. One of those unread 
despatches signed by Lincoln, assigned it to the Pickens 
expedition. When the sailing orders from Welles were 
received, the commander of the Sumter fleet claimed the 
Powhatan. The Pickens commander refused to give it up. 
The latter telegraphed Seward that his expedition was "be- 
ing retarded and embarrassed" by "conflicting" orders from 
Welles. The result w^as a stormy conference between 
Seward and Welles which was adjourned to the White 
House and became a conference with Lincoln. And then the 
whole story came out. Lincoln played the scapegoat, "took 
the whole blame upon himself, said it was carelessness, heed- 
lessness on his part; he ought to have been more careful and 
attentive." But he insisted on immediate correction of his 
error, on the restoration of the Pozvhatan to the Sumter 
fleet. Seward struggled hard for his plan. Lincoln was 
inflexible. As Seward had directed the preparation of the 
Pickens expedition, Lincoln required him to telegraph to 
Brooklyn the change in orders. Seward, beaten by his 
enemy Welles, was deeply chagrined. In his agitation he 
forgot to be formal, forgot that the previous order had 
gone out in the President's name, and wired curtly, "Give 
up the Powhatan. Seward." 

This despatch was received just as the Pickens expedi- 
tion was sailing. The commander of the Pozvhatan had 
now before him, three orders. Naturally, he held that the 
one signed by the President took precedence over the others. 
He went on his way, with his great war-ship, to Florida. 
The Sumter expedition sailed without any powerful ship 



i66 LINCOLN 

of war. In tliis strange fashion, chance executed Seward's 
design. 

Lincohi had previously informed the Governor of South 
Carolina that due notice would be given, should he decide 
to relieve Sumter. Word was now sent that "an attempt 
will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only; 
and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw 
in men, arms or ammunition will be made without further 
notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort."-^ Though 
the fleet was not intended to offer battle, it was supposed 
to be strong enough to force its way into the harbor, should 
the relief of Sumter be opposed. But the power to do so 
was wholly conditioned on the presence in its midst of the 
Pozvhatan. And the Powhatan was far out to sea on its 
way to Florida. 

And now it was the turn of the Confederate govern- 
ment to confront a crisis. It, no less than Washington, had 
passed through a period of disillusion. The assumption 
upon which its chief politicians had built so confidently had 
collapsed. The South was not really a unit. It was 
not true that the secession of any one State, on any sort of 
issue, would compel automatically the secession of all the 
Southern States. North Carolina had exploded this illu- 
sion. Virginia had exploded it. The South could not be 
united on the issue of slavery; it could not be united on the 
issue of sectional dread. It could be united on but one 
issue — State sovereignty, the denial of the right of the Fed- 
eral Government to coerce a State. The time had come to 
decide whether the cannon at Charleston should fire. As 
Seward had foreseen, Montgomery held the trumps; but 
had Montgomery the courage to play them? 

There was a momentous debate in the Confederate 



PRESIDENT AND PREMIER 167 

Cabinet. Robert Toombs, the Secretary of State, whose 
rapid growth in comprehension since December formed a 
parallel to Lincoln's growth, threw his influence on the side 
of further delay. He would not invoke that "final argu- 
ment of kings," the shotted cannon. "Mr. President," he 
exclaimed, "at this time, it is suicide, murder, and will lose 
us every friend at the North. You will instantly strike a 
hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and 
legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. 
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal." But 
Toombs stood alone in the Cabinet. Orders were sent to 
Charleston to reduce Fort Sumter. Before dawn, April 
twelfth, the first shot was fired. The flag of the United 
States was hauled down on the afternoon of the thirteenth. 
Meanwhile the relieving fleet had arrived — without the 
Pozvhatan. Bereft of its great ship, it could not pass the 
harbor batteries and assist the fort. Its only service was 
to take off the garrison which by the terms of surrender 
was allowed to withdraw. On the fourteenth, Sumter was 
evacuated and the inglorious fleet sailed back to the north- 
ward. 

Lincoln at once accepted the gage of battle. On the 
fifteenth appeared his proclamation calling for an army of 
seventy-five thousand volunteers. Automatically, the upper 
South fulfilled its unhappy destiny. Challenged at last, on 
the irreconcilable issue, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennes- 
see, Arkansas, seceded. 

The final argument of kings was the only one remaining. 



XVI 

''on to RICHMOND r 

It has been truly said that the Americans are an un- 
military but an intensely warlike nation. Seward's belief 
that a war fury would sweep the country at the first can- 
non shot was amply justified. Both North and South ap- 
peared to rise as one man, crying fiercely to be led to 
battle. 

The immediate effect on Washington had not been 
foreseen. That historic clash at Baltimore between the 
city's mob and the Sixth Massachusetts en route to the 
capital, was followed by an outburst of secession feeling in 
Maryland; by an attempt to isolate Washington from the 
North. Railway tracks were torn up; telegraph wires were 
cut. During several days Lincoln was entirely ignorant of 
what the North was doing. Was there an efficient general 
response to his call for troops? Or was precious time 
being squandered in preparation? Was it conceivable that 
the war fury was only talk? Looking forth from the 
White House, he was a prisoner of the horizon; an im- 
penetrable mystery, it shut the capital in a ring of silence 
all but intolerable. Washington assumed the air of a be- 
leaguered city. General Scott hastily drew in the small 
forces which the govermnent had maintained in Maryland 
and Virginia. Government employees and loyal Wash- 
ingtonians were armed and began to drill. The White 
House became a barracks. "J"''^ Lane," writes delightful 

i68 



"ON TO RICHMOND r 169 

John Hay in his diary, which is always cool, rippling, 
sunny, no matter how acnte the crisis, ''Jim Lane mar- 
shalled his Kansas warriors to-day at Williard's . . . 
to-night (they are in) the East Room."^ Hay's humor 
brightens the tragic hour. He felt it his duty to report to 
Lincoln a "yarn" that had been told to him by some charm- 
ing women who had insisted on an interview; they had 
heard from "a dashing Virginian" that inside forty-eight 
hours something would happen which would ring through 
the world. The ladies thought this meant the capture or 
assassination of the President. "Lincoln quietly grinned." 
But Hay who plainly enjoyed the episode, charming women 
and all, had got himself into trouble. He had to do "some 
very dexterous lying to calm the awakened fears of Mrs. 
Lincoln in regard to the assassination suspicion." IMilitia 
were quartered in the Capitol, and Pennsylvania Avenue 
was a drill ground. At the President's reception, the dis- 
tinguished politician C. C. Clay, "wore with a sublimely 
unconscious air three pistols and an Arkansas toothpick, 
and looked like an admirable vignette to twenty-five cents' 
worth of yellow covered romance." 

But Hay's levity was all of the surface. Beneath it 
was intense anxiety. General Scott reported that the Vir- 
ginia militia, concentrating about Washington, were a for- 
midable menace, though he thought he was strong enough 
to hold out until relief should come. As the days passed 
and nothing appeared upon that inscrutable horizon while 
the telegraph remained silent, Lincoln became moodily dis- 
tressed. One afternoon, "the business of the day being 
over, the executive office deserted, after walking the floor 
alone in silent thought for nearly a half-hour, he stopped 
and gazed long and wistfully out of the windov/ down the 



I70 LINCOLN 

Potomac in the direction of the expected ships (bringing 
soldiers from New York) ; and unconscious of other pres- 
ence in the room, at length broke out with irrepressible 
anguish in the repeated exclamation, 'Why don't they 
come! Why don't they come!'"^ 

His unhappiness flashed into words while he was visit- 
ing those Massachusetts soldiers who had been wounded 
on their way to Washington. "I don't believe there is any 
North. . . ." he exclaimed. "You are the only North- 
ern realities."^ But even then relief was at hand. The 
Seventh New York, which had marched down Broadway 
amid such an ovation as never before was given any regi- 
ment in America, had come by sea to Annapolis. At noon 
on April twenty-fifth, it reached Washington bringing, 
along with the welcome sight of its own bayonets, the news 
that the North had risen, that thousands more were on the 
march. 

Hay who met them at the depot went at once to report 
to Lincoln. Already the President had reacted to a "pleas- 
ant, hopeful mood." He began outlining a tentative plan 
of action: blockade, maintenance of the safety of Wash- 
ington, holding Fortress Monroe, and then to "go down to 
Charleston and pay her the little debt we are owing there."* 
But this was an undigested plan. It had little resemblance 
to any of his later plans. And immediately the chief diffi- 
culties that were to embarrass all his plans appeared. He 
was a minority President; and he was the Executive of a 
democracy. Many things were to happen; many mistakes 
were to be made; many times the piper was to be paid; 
ere Lincoln felt sufficiently sure of his support to enforce 
a policy of his own, defiant of opposition. 

Throughout the spring of 1861 his imperative need was 



"ON TO RICHMOND!" 171 

to secure the favor of the Northern mass, to shape his 
pohcy with that end in view. At least, in his own mind, 
this seemed to be his paramount obhgation. And so it 
was in the minds of his advisers. Lincohi was still in the 
pliable mood which was his when he entered office, which 
continued to be in evidence, except for sudden momentary 
disappearances when a different Lincoln flashed an instant 
into view, until another year and more had gone by. Still 
he felt himself the apprentice hand painfully learning the 
trade of man of action. Still he was deeply sensitive to 
advice. 

And what advice did the country give him? There 
was one roaring shout dinning into his ears all round the 
Northern horizon — "On to Richmond!" Following Vir- 
ginia's secession, Richmond had become the Confederate 
capital. It was expected that a session of the Confederate 
Congress would open at Richmond in July. "On to Rich- 
mond ! Forward to Richmond !" screamed The Tribune. 
"The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there 
on the 20th of July. By that date the place must be held 
by the national army." The Times advised the resigna- 
tion of the Cabinet; it warned the President that if he did 
not give prompt satisfaction he would be superseded. 
Though Lincoln laughed at the threat of The Times to 
"depose" him, he took very seriously all the swiftly accumu- 
lating evidence that the North was becoming rashly im- 
patient. Newspaper correspondents at Washington talked 
to his secretaries "impertinently."^ Members of Congress, 
either carried away by the excitement of the hour or with 
slavish regard to the hysteria of their constituents, thronged 
to Washington clamoring for action. On purely political 
grounds, if on no other, they demanded an immediate ad- 



172 LINCOLN 

vance into Virginia. Military men looked with irritation, 
if not with contempt, on all this intemperate popular fury. 
That grim Sherman, who had been offended by Lincoln's 
tone the month previous, put their feeling into words. De- 
clining the offer of a position in the War Department, he 
wrote that he wished "the Administration all success in its 
almost impossible task of governing this distracted and 
anarchial people."^ 

In the President's councils, General Scott urged delay, 
and the gathering of the volunteers into camps of instruc- 
tion, their deliberate transformation into a genuine army. 
So inadequate were the resources of the government; so 
loose and uncertain were the militia organizations which 
w^ere attempting to combine into an army; such discrep- 
ancies appeared between the nominal and actual strength 
of commands, between the places where men were supposed 
to be and the places where they actually were; that Lincoln 
in his droll way compared the process of mobilization to 
shoveling a bushel of fleas across a barn floor. '^ From the 
military point of view it was no time to attempt an ad- 
vance. Against the military argument, three political 
arguments loomed dark in the minds of the Cabinet; there 
was the clamor of the Northern majority; there were the 
threats of the politicians who were to assemble in Con- 
gress, July fourth; there was the term of service of the 
volunteers which had been limited by the proclamation to 
three m.onths. Late in June, tlie Cabinet decided upon the 
political course, overruled the military advisers, and gave 
its voice for an immediate advance into Virginia. Lin- 
coln accepted this rash advice. Scott yielded. General 
Irwin McDowell was ordered to strike a Confederate force 
that had assembled at Manassas.^ 



"ON TO RICHMOND!" 173 

On the fourth of July, the day Congress met, the gov- 
ernment made use of a coup dc theatre. It held a review 
of what was then considered a "grand army" of twenty- 
five thousand men. A few days later, the sensibilities of 
the Congressmen were further exploited. Impressionable 
members were "deeply moved," when the same host in 
marching order passed again through the city and wheeled 
southward toward Virginia. Confident of victory, the 
Congressmen spent these days in high debate upon any- 
thing that took their fancy. When, a fortnight later, it 
was known that a battle was imminent, many of them 
treated the occasion as a picnic. They took horses, or 
hired vehicles, and away they went southward for a jolly 
outing on the day the Confederacy was to collapse. In 
the mind of the unfortunate General who commanded the 
expedition a different mood prevailed. In depression, he 
said to a friend, "This is not an army. It will take a long 
time to make an army." But his duty as a soldier for- 
bade him to oppose his superiors; "the poor fellow could 
not proclaim his distrust of his army in public."^ Thought- 
ful observers at Washington felt danger in the air, both 
military and political. 

Sunday, July twenty-first, dawned clear. It was the 
day of the expected battle. A noted Englishman, setting 
out for the front as war correspondent of the London 
Times, observed "the calmness and silence of the streets 
of Washington, this early morning." After crossing the 
Potomac, he felt that "the promise of a lovely day given 
by the early dawn was likely to be realized to the fullest" ; 
and "the placid beauty of the scenery as we drove through 
the woods below Arlington" delighted him. And then 
about nine o'clock his thoughts abandoned the scenery. 



174 LINCOLN 

Through those beautiful Virginia woods came the distant 
roar of cannon. 

At the White House that day there was httle if any 
alarm. Reports received at various times were construed 
by military men as favorable. These, with the rooted pre- 
conception that the army had to be successful, established 
confidence in a victory before nightfall. Late in the after- 
noon, the President relieved his tension by taking a drive. 
He had not returned when, about six o'clock, Seward ap- 
peared and asked hoarsely where he was. The secretaries 
told him. He begged them to find the President as quickly 
as possible. "Tell no one," said he, "but the battle is lost. 
The army is in full retreat." 

The news of the rout at Bull Run did not spread 
through Washington until close to midnight. It caused 
an instantaneous panic. In the small hours, the space be- 
fore the Treasury was "a moving mass of humanity. 
Every man seemed to be asking every man he met for the 
latest news, while all sorts of rumors filled the air. A feel- 
ing of mingled horror and despair appeared to possess 
everybody. . . . Our soldiers came straggling into 
the city covered with dust and many of them wounded, 
while the panic that led to the disaster spread like a con- 
tagion through all classes." The President did not share 
the panic. He "received the news quietly and without any 
visible sign of perturbation or excitement."^° Now appeared 
in him the quality which led Herndon to call him a fatalist. 
All night long he sat unruffled in his office, while refugees 
from the stricken field — especially those overconfident 
Senators and Representatives who had gone out to watch 
the overthrow of the Confederates — poured into his ears 
their various and conflicting accounts of the catastrophe. 



"ON TO RICHMOND!" 175 

During that long night Lincoln said almost nothing. 
Meanwhile, fragments of the routed army continued to 
stream into the city. At dawn the next day Washington 
was possessed by a swarm of demoralized soldiers while a 
dreary rain settled over it. 

The silent man in the White House had forgotten for 
the moment his dependence upon his advisers. While the 
runaway Senators were talking themselves out, while the 
rain was sheeting up the city, he had reached two con- 
clusions. Early in the morning, he formulated both. One 
conclusion was a general outline for the conduct of a long 
war in which the first move should be a call for volunteers 
to serve three years.^^ The other conclusion was the 
choice of a conducting general. Scott was too old. Mc- 
Dowell had failed. But there was a young officer, a West 
Pointer, who had been put in command of the Ohio militia, 
who had entered the Virginia mountains from the West, 
had engaged a small force there, and had won several 
small but rather showy victories. Young as he was, he 
had served in the Mexican War and was supposed to be 
highly accomplished. On the day following Bull Run, 
Lincoln ordered McClellan to Washington to take com- 
mand. ^^ 



XVII 



DEFINING THE ISSUE 



While these startling events were taking place in the 
months between Sumter and Bull Run, Lincoln passed 
through a searching intellectual experience. The recon- 
ception of his problem, which took place in March, neces- 
sitated a readjustment of his political attitude. He had 
prepared his arsenal for the use of a strategy- now obviously 
beside the mark. The vital part of the first inaugural was 
its attempt to cut the ground from under the slave 
profiteers. Its assertion that nothing else was important, 
the idea that the crisis was "artificial," was sincere. Two 
discoveries had revolutionized Lincoln's thought. The 
discovery that what the South was in earnest about was 
not slavery but State sovereignty; the discovery that the 
North was far from a unit upon nationalism. To meet 
the one, to organize the other, was the double task pre- 
cipitated by the fall of Sumter. Not only as a line of at- 
tack, but also as a means of defense, Lincoln had to raise 
to its highest power the argument for the sovereign reality 
of the national government. The effort to do this formed 
the silent inner experience behind the surging external 
events in the stormy months between April and July. It 
was governed by a firmness not paralleled in his outward 
course. As always, Lincoln the thinker asked no advice. 
It was Lincoln the administrator, painfully learning a new 

176 



DEFINING THE ISSUE 177 

trade, who was timid, wavering, pliable in council. Behind 
the apprentice in statecraft, the lonely thinker stood apart, 
inflexible as ever, impervious to fear. The thinking which 
he formulated in the late spring and early summer of 1861 
obeyed his invariable law of mental gradualness. It arose 
out of the deep places of his own past. He built up his 
new conclusion by drawing together conclusions he had 
long held, by charging them with his later experience, by 
giving to them a new turn, a new significance. 

Lincoln's was one of those natures in which ideas have 
to become latent before they can be precipitated by outward 
circumstance into definite form. Always with him the idea 
that was to become powerful at a crisis was one that he 
had long held in solution, that had permeated him without 
his formulating it, that had entwined itself with his heart- 
strings; never was it merely a conscious act of the logical 
faculty. His characteristics as a lawyer — ^preoccupation 
with basal ideas, with ethical significance, with those emo- 
tions which form the ultimates of life — these always de- 
termined his thought. His idea of nationalism was a 
typical case. He had always believed in the reality of the 
national government as a sovereign fact. But he had 
thought little about it; rather he had taken it for granted. 
It was so close to his desire that he could not without an 
effort acknowledge the sincerity of disbelief in it. That 
was why he was so slow in forming a true comprehension 
of the real force opposing him. Disunion had appeared to 
him a mere device of party strategy. That It was grounded 
upon a genuine, a passionate conception of government, 
one irreconcilable with his own, struck him, when at last he 
grasped It, as a deep offense. The literary statesman 
sprang again to life. He threw all the strength of his 



178 LINCOLN 

mind, the peculiar strength that had made him president, 
into a statement of the case for nationahsm. 

His vehicle for publishing his case was the first mes- 
sage to Congress.^ It forms an amazing contrast with the 
first inaugural. The argument over slavery that underlies 
the whole of the inaugural has vanished. The message 
does not mention slavery. From the first word to the last, 
it is an argument for the right of the central government 
to exercise sovereign power, and for the duty of the Amer- 
ican people to give their lives for the Union. No hint of 
compromise ; nought of the cautious and conciliatory tone 
of the inaugural. It is the blast of a trumpet — a war 
trumpet. It is the voice of a stern mind confronting an 
adversary that arouses in him no sympathy, no tolerance 
even, much less any thought of concession. Needless to 
insist that this adversary- is an idea. Toward every human 
adversary, Lincoln was always unbelievably tender. 
Though little of a theologian, he appreciated intuitively 
some metaphysical ideas; he projected into politics the 
philosopher's distinction between sin and the sinner. For 
all his hatred of the ideas which he held to be treason, he 
never had a vindictive impulse directed toward the men 
who accepted those ideas. Destruction for the idea, infi- 
nite clemency for the person — such was his attitude. 

It was the idea of disunion, involving as he believed, a 
misconception of the American government, and by impli- 
cation, a misconception of the true function of all govern- 
ments everywhere, against which he declared a war with- 
out recourse. 

The basis of his argument reaches back to his oration 
on Clay, to his assertion that Clay loved his country, partly 
because it was his country, even more because it was a free 



DEFINING THE ISSUE 179 

country. This idea ran through Lincoln's thinking to the 
end. There was in him a suggestion of internationahsm. 
At the full height of his power, in his complete maturity as 
a political thinker, he said that the most sacred bond in 
life should be the brotherhood of the workers of all nations. 
No words of his are more significant than his remarks to 
passing soldiers in 1863, such as, "There is more involved 
in this contest than is realized by every one. There is in- 
volved in this struggle the question whether your children 
and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have en- 
joyed." And again, "I happen temporarily to occupy this 
1 1 White House. I am a living witness that any one of your 
■^children may look to come here as my father's child has."^ 
This idea, the idea that the "plain people" are the chief 
concern of government was the bed rock of all his political 
thinking. The mature, h^oric Lincoln is first of all a 
leader of the plain people — of the mass — as truly as was 
Cleon, or Robespierre, or Andrew Jackson. His gentle- 
ness does not remove him from that stern category. The 
latent fanaticism that is in every man, or almost every 
man, was grounded in Lincoln, on his faith — so whimsically 
expressed ! — that God must have loved the plain people 
because he had made so many of them.^ The basal appeal 
of the first message was in the words: 

"This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of 
the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that 
form and substance of government whose leading object 
is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights 
from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit 
for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance 
in the race of life."* 

Not a war over slavery, not a war to preserve a constitu- 



\ 



i8o LINCOLN 

tional system, but a war to assert and maintain the sover- 
eignty of — "We, the People." 

But how was it to be proved that this was, in fact, the 
true issue of the moment? Here, between the hnes of the 
first message, Lincoln's deepest feelings are to be glimpsed. 
Out of the discovery that Virginia honestly believed herself 
a sovereign power, he had developed in himself a deep, 
slow-burning fervor that probably did much toward fusing 
him into the great Lincoln of history. But why? What 
was there in that idea which should strike so deep? Why 
was it not merely one view in a permissible disagreement 
over the interpretation of the Constitution? Why did the 
cause of the people inspire its champion to regard the doc- 
trine of State sovereignty as anti-christ? Lincoln has not 
revealed himself on these points in so many words. But 
he has revealed himself plainly enough by implication. 

The clue is in that element of internationalism which 
lay at the back of his mind. There must be no misunder- 
standing of this element. It was not pointing along the 
way of the modern "international." Lincoln would have 
fought Bolshevism to the death. Side by side with his 
assertion of the sanctity of the international bond of labor, 
stands his assertion of a sacred right in property and that 
capital is a necessity.^ His internationalism was ethical, 
not opportunistic. It grew, as all his ideas grew, not out 
of a theorem, not from a constitutional interpretation, but 
from his overpowering commiseration for the mass of man- 
kind. It was a practical matter. Here were poor people 
to be assisted, to be enriched in their estate, to be enlarged 
in spirit. The mode of reaching the result was not the 
thing. Any mode, all sorts of modes, might be used. 
What counted was the purpose to work relief, and the will- 



DEFINING THE ISSUE i8i 

ingress to throw overboard whatever it might be that 
tended to defeat the purpose. His internationahsm was 
but a denial of "my country right or wrong." There can 
be httle doubt that, in last resort, he would have repudiated 
his country rather than go along with it in opposition to 
what he regarded as the true purpose of government. And 
that was, to advance the welfare of the mass of mankind.. 
He thought upon this subject in the same manner in 
which he thought as a lawyer, sweeping aside everything 
but what seemed to him the ethical reality at the heart of 
the case. For him the "right" of a State to do this or that 
was a constitutional question only so long as it did not 
cross that other more universal "right," the paramount 
"charter of liberty," by which, in his view, all other rights 
were conditioned. He would impose on all mankind, as 
their basic moral obligation, the duty to sacrifice all per- 
sonal likes, personal ambitions, when these in their perma- 
nent tendencies ran contrary to the tendency which he rated 
as paramount. Such had always been, and was always to 
continue, his own attitude toward slavery. No one ever 
loathed it more. But he never permitted it to take the 
first place in his thoughts. If it could be eradicated with- 
out in the process creating dangers for popular govern- 
ment he would rejoice. But all the schemes of the Aboli- 
tionists, hitherto, he had condemned as dangerous devices 
because they would strain too severely the fabric of the 
popular state, would violate agreements which alone made 
it possible. Therefore, being always relentless toward 
himself, he required of himself the renunciation of this 
personal hope whenever, in whatever way, it threatened to 
make less effective the great democratic state which ap- 
peared to him the central fact of the world. 



i82 LI^XOLN 

The enlargement of his reasoning led him inevitably to 
an unsparing condemnation of the Mrginian theory. One 
of his rare flashes of irritation was an exclamation that 
Virginia loyalty always had an "if."^ At this point, to 
make him entirely plain, there is needed another basic as- 
sumption which he has never quite formulated. However, 
it is so obviously latent in his thinking that the main lines 
are to be made out clearly enough. Building ever on that 
paramount obligation of all mankind to consider first the 
welfare of God's plain people, he assumed that whenever 
by any course of action any congregation of men were 
thrown together and lead to form any political unit, they 
were never thereafter free to disregard in their attitude to- 
ward that unit its value in supporting and advancing the 
general cause of the welfare of the plain people. A sweep- 
ing, and in some contingencies, a terrible doctrine! Cer- 
tainly, as to individuals, classes, communities even, a doc- 
trine that might easily become destructive. But it formed 
the basis of all Lincoln's thought about the ''majority" in 
America. Upon it would have rested his reply, had he 
ever made a reply, to the Mrginia contention that while his 
theory might apply to each individual State, it could not 
apply to the group of States. He would have treated such 
a reply, whether fairly or unfairly, as a legal technicality. 
He would have said in substance: here is a congregation 
to be benefited, this great mass of all the inhabitants of all 
the States of the Union; accident, or destiny, or what you 
will, has brought them together, but here they are ; they are 
moving forward, haltingly, irregularly, but steadily, toward 
fuller and fuller democracy; they are part of the universal 
democratic movement; their vast experiment has an inter- 
national significance; it is the hope of the "Liberal party 



DEFIXIXG THE ISSUE 183 

throughout the world"'; to check that experiment, to break 
it into separate minor experiments; to reduce the imposing 
promise of its example by making it seem unsuccessful, 
would be treason to mankind. Therefore, both on South 
and North, both on the Seceders he meant to fight and on 
those Northerners of whom he was not entirely sure, he 
aimed to impose the supreme immediate duty of proving to 
the world that democracy on a great scale could have suffi- 
cient vitality to maintain itself against any sort of attack. 
Anticipating faintly the Gettysburg oration, the first mes- 
sage contained these words : ''And this issue embraces 
more tlian the fate of these United States. It presents to 
the whole family of man the question whether a constitu- 
tional republic, or democracy — a government of the people 
by the same people — can or can not maintain its integrity 
against its own domestic foes. . . . Must a government 
of necessit}' be too strong for tlie liberties of its people or 
too weak to maintain its own existence?"'" He told Hay 
that "the crucial idea per^-ading this struggle is the neces- 
sity that is upon us to prove that popular government is not 
an absurdity"' ; "that the basal issue was whether or no tlie 
people could govern themselves."^ 

But all this elaborate reasoning, if it went no furtlier, 
lacked authority. It was political speculation. To clothe 
itself with authority' it had to discover a foundation in 
historic fact. The real difficulty was not what ought to have 
been established in America in the past, but that actually 
had been, ^^'he^e was the warrant for those bold proposi- 
tions — who "we. the people," really were; in what their 
sovereign power really consisted; what was history's voice 
in the matter? To state an historic foundation ^vu.s the 
final aim of the messagre. To hit its mark it had to silence 



1 84 LINCOLN 

those Northerners who denied the obhgation to fight for 
the Union; it had to oppose their "free love" ideas of poht- 
ical unity with the conception of an estabhshed historic 
government, one which could not be overthrown except 
through the nihilistic process of revolution. So much has 
been written upon the exact location of sovereignty in the 
American federal State that it is difficult to escape the legal- 
istic attitude, and to treat the matter purely as history. 
So various, so conflicting, and at times so tenuous, are the 
theories, that a flippant person might be forgiven did he 
turn from the whole discussion saying impatiently it was 
blind man's buff. But on one thing, at least, we must all 
agree. Once there was a king over this counLr)% and now 
there is no king. Once the British Crown was the sover- 
eign, and now the Crown has receded into the distance be- 
yond the deep blue sea. When the Crown renounced its 
sovereignty in America, what became of it? Did it break 
into fragments and pass peacemeal to the various revolted 
colonies? Was it transferred somehow to the group col- 
lectively? These are the obvious theories; but there are 
others. And the others give rise to subtler speculations. 
Who was it that did the actual revolting against the Crown 
— colonies, parties, individuals, the whole American people, 
who? 

Troublesome questions these, with which Lincoln and 
the men of his time did not deal in the spirit of historical 
science. Their wishes fathered their thoughts. Southern- 
ers, practically without exception, held the theory of the 
disintegration of the Crown's prerogative, its distribution 
among the States. The great leaders of Northern thought 
repudiated the idea. Webster and Clay would have none 
of it. But their own theories were not always consistent; 



DEFINING THE ISSUE 185 

and they differed among themselves. Lincoln did the 
natural thing. He fastened upon the tendencies in North- 
ern thought that supported his own, faith. Chief among 
these was the idea that sovereignty passed to the general 
congregation of the inhabitants of the colonies — "we, the 
people" — because we, the people, were the real power that 
supported the revolt. He had accepted the idea that the 
American Revolution was an uprising of the people, that 
its victory was in a transfer of sovereign rights from an 
English Crown to an American nation; that a new col- 
lective state, the Union, was created by this nation as the 
first act of the struggle, and that it was to the Union that 
the Crown succumbed, to the Union that its prerogative 
passed. To put this idea in its boldest and its simplest 
terms was the crowning effort of the message. 

"The States have their status in the Union and they 
have no other legal status. If they break from this, they 
can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, 
and not themselves separately, procured their independence 
and their liberty. By conquest or purchase, the Union 
gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it 
has. The Union is older than any of the States, and in fact, 
it created them as States. Originally some dependent colo- 
nies made the Union, and in turn, the Union threw off this 
old dependence for them and made them States, such as 
they are."^ 

Tliis first message completes the evolution of Lincoln 
as a political thinker. It is his third, his last great land- 
mark. The Peoria speech, which drew to a focus all the 
implications of his early life, laid the basis of his political 
significance; the Cooper Union speech, summing up his 
conflict with Douglas, applied his thinking to the new issue 



i86 LINCOLN 

precipitated by John Brown; but in both these he was still 
predominantly a negative thinker, still the voice of an 
opposition. With the first message, he became creative; 
he drew together what was latent in his earlier thought ; he 
discarded the negative; he laid the foundation of all his 
subsequent policy. The breadth and depth of his thinking 
is revealed by the fulness with which the message develops 
the implications of his theory. In so doing, he anticipated 
the main issues that were to follow: his determination to 
keep nationalism from being narrowed into mere "North- 
ernism" ; his effort to create an all-parties government ; his 
stubborn insistence that he was suppressing an insurrection, 
not waging external Avar; his doctrine that the Executive, 
having been chosen by the entire people, was the one ex- 
pression of the sovereignty of the people, and therefore, 
the repository of all these exceptional "war powers" that 
are dormant in time of peace. Upon each of those issues 
he was destined to wage fierce battles with the politicians 
who controlled Congress, who sought to make Congress 
his master, who thwarted, tormented and almost defeated 
him. In the light of subsequent history the first message 
has another aspect besides its significance as political 
science. In its clear understanding of the implications of 
his attitude, it attains political second sight. As Lincoln, 
immovable, gazes far into the future, his power of vision 
makes him, yet again though in a widely different sense, 
the "seer in a trance. Seeing all his own mischance." 

His troubles with Congress began at once. The message 
was received on July fourth, politely, but with scant re- 
sponse to its ideas. During two weeks, while Congress in 
its fatuousness thought that the battle impending in Vir- 
ginia would settle things, the majority in Congress would 



DEFINING THE ISSUE 187 

not give assent to Lincoln's view of what the war was 
about. And then came Bull Run. In a flash the situation 
changed. Fatuousness was puffed out like a candle in a 
wind. The rankest extremist saw that Congress must 
cease from its debates and show its hand; must say what 
the war was about; must inform the nation whether it did 
or did not agree with the President. 

On the day following Bull Run, Crittenden introduced 
this resolution : "That the present, deplorable civil war 
has been forced upon the country by the Disunionists of 
the Southern States, now in anns against the constitutional 
government, and in arms around the capital ; that in this 
national emergency. Congress, banishing all feelings of 
mere passion and resentment, will recollect only its duty 
to the whole country; that this war is not waged on their 
part in any spirit of oppression or for any purpose of con- 
quest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or inter- 
fering with the rights or established institutions of these 
States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the 
Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dig- 
nity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; 
and that as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war 
ought to cease." This Crittenden Resolution was passed 
instantly by both Houses, without debate and almost with- 
out opposition. ^^ 

Paradoxically, Bull Run had saved the day for Lincoln, 
had enabled him to v^^in his first victory as a statesman. 



XVIII 

THE JACOBIN CLUB 

The keen Englishman who had observed the beauty 
of the Virginian woods on "Bull Run Sunday," said, after 
the battle was lost, "I hope Senator Wilson is satisfied." 
He was sneering at the whole group of intemperate Senators 
none of whom had ever smelled powder, but who knew it 
all when it came to war ; who had done their great share in 
driving the President and the generals into a premature 
advance. Senator Wilson was one of those who went out 
to Manassas to see the Confederacy overthrown, that fate- 
ful Sunday. He was one of the most precipitate among 
those who fled back to Washington. On the way, driving 
furiously, amid a press of men and vehicles, he passed a 
carriage containing four Congressmen who were taking 
their time. Perhaps irritated by their coolness, he shouted 
to them to make haste. "If we were in as big a hurry as 
you are," replied Congressman Riddle, scornfully, "we 

would." 

These four Congressmen played a curiously dramatic 
part before they got back to Washington. So did a party 
of Senators with whom they joined forces. This other 
party, at the start, also numbered four. They had planned 
a jolly picnic— this day that was to prove them right in 
hurrying the government into battle! — and being wise men 
who knew how to take time by the forelock, they had taken 
their luncheon with them. From what is known of Wash- 

i88 



THE JACOBIN CLUB 189 

ington and Senators, then as now, one may risk a good 
deal that the kincheon v/as worth while/ Part of the 
tragedy of that day was the accidental break-np of this 
party with the result amid the confusion of a road crowded 
by pleasure-seekers, that two Senators went one way carry- 
ing off the luncheon, while the other two, making the best 
of the disaster, continued southward through those beauti- 
ful early hours when Russell was admiring the scenery, 
their luncheon all to seek. The lucky men with the hmch- 
eon were the Senators Benjamin Wade and Zachary 
Chandler. Senator Trumbull and Senator Grimes, both on 
horseback, were left to their own devices. However, for- 
tune was with them. Several hours later they had suc- 
ceeded in getting food by the wayside and were resting in 
a grove of trees some distance beyond the village of Center- 
yille. Suddenly, they suffered an appalling surprise ; happen- 
ing to look up, they beheld emerging out of the distance, 
a stampede of men and horses which came thunder- 
ing down the country road, not a hundred yards from 
where they sat. "We immediately mounted our horses," 
as Trumbull wrote to his wife the next day, "and galloped 
to the road, by which time it was crowded, hundreds being 
in advance on the way to Centerville and two guns of 
Sherman's battery having already passed in full retreat. 
We kept on with the crowd, not knowing what else to do. 
• . . We fed our horses at Centerville and left there 
at six o'clock. . . . Came on to Fairfax Court House 
where we got supper and, leaving there at ten o'clock 
reached home at half past two this morning. ... I 
am dreadfully disappointed and mortified."^ 

Meanwhile, what of those other gay picnickers. Senator 
Wade and Senator Chandler? They drove in a carriage. 



I90 LINCOLN 

Viewing the obligations of the hour much as did C. C. 
Clay at the President's reception, they were armed. Wade 
had "his famous rifle" which he had brought with him to 
Congress, which at times in the fury of debate he had 
threatened to use, which had become a byword. These 
Senators seem to have ventured nearer to the front than 
did Trumbull and Grimes, and were a little later in the 
retreat. At a "choke-up," still on the far side of Center- 
ville, their carriage passed the carriage of the four Con- 
gressmen — who, by the way, were also armed, having 
among them "four of the largest navy revolvers." 

All these men, whatever their faults or absurdities, 
were intrepid. The Congressmen, at least, were in no good 
humor, for they had driven through a regiment of three- 
months men whose time expired that day and who despite 
the cannon in the distance w^ere hurrying home. 

The race of the fugitives continued. At Centerville, 
the Congressmen passed Wade. Soon afterward Wade 
passed them for the second time. About a mile out of 
Fairfax Court House, "at the foot of a long down grade, 
the pike on the northerly side was fenced and ran along a 
farm. On the other side for a considerable distance was 
a wood, utterly impenetrable for men or animals, larger 
than cats or squirrels." Here the Wade carriage stopped. 
The congressional carriage drove up beside it. The two 
blocked a narrow way w^here as in the case of Horatius at 
the bridge, "a thousand might well be stopped by three." 
And then "bluff Ben Wade" showed the mettle that was in 
him. The "old Senator, his hat well back on his head," 
sprang out of his carriage, his rifle in his hand, and called 
to the others, "Boys, we'll stop this damned runaway," 
And they did it. Only six of them, but they lined up 



THE JACOBIN CLUB '191 

across that narrow road ; presented their weapons and 
threatened to shoot; seized the bridles of horses and flung 
the horses back on their haunches ; checked a panic-stricken 
army; held it at bay, until just when it seemed they were 
about to be overwhelmed, military reserves hurrying out 
from Fairfax Court House, took command of the road. 
Cool, unpretentious Riddle calls the episode "Wade's ex- 
ploit," and adds "it was much talked of." The newspapers 
dealt with it extravagantly.- 

Gallant as the incident was, it was all the military 
service that "Ben" Wade and "Zach" Chandler — for thus 
they are known in history — ever saw. But one may be- 
lieve that it had a lasting effect upon their point of view 
and on that of their friend Lyman Trumbull. Certain it 
is that none of the three thereafter had any doubts about 
putting the military men in theij- place. All the error of 
their own view previous to Bull Run was forgotten. Wade 
and Chandler, especially, when militar}^ questions were in 
dispute, felt that no one possibly could know more of the 
subject than did the men who stopped the rout in the nar- 
row road beyond Fairfax. 

Three of those picnickers who missed their guess on 
Bull Run Sunday, Wade, Chandler and Trumbull, were 
destined to important parts in the stern years that were to 
come. Before the close of the year 1861 the three made 
a second visit to the anny; and this time they kept together. 
To that second visit momentous happenings may be traced. 
How it came about must be fully understood. 

Two of the three, Wade and Chandler, were tempera- 
mentally incapable of understanding Lincoln. Both were 
men of fierce souls ; each had but a very limited experience. 
Wade had been a country lawyer in Ohio ; Chandler, a pros- 



192 LINCOLN 

perous manufacturer in Michigan. They were party men 
by instinct, Wind to the faults of their own side, blind to 
the virtues of their enemies. They were rabid for the con- 
trol of the government by their own organized machine. 

Of Chandler, in Michigan, it was said that he "carried 
the Republican organization in his breeches pocket"; partly 
through control of the Federal patronage, which Lincoln 
frankly conceded to him, partly through a "judicious use 
of money."^ Chandler's first clash with Lincoln was upon 
the place that the Republican machine was to hold in the 
conduct of the war. 

From the beginning Lincoln was resolved that the war 
should not be merely a party struggle. Even before he 
was inaugurated, he said that he meant to hold the Demo- 
crats "close to the Administration on the naked Union 
issue. "^ He had added, "We must make it easy for them" 
to support the government "because we can't live through 
the case without them." This was the foundation of his 
attempt — so obvious between the lines of the first message 
— to create an all-parties government. This, Chandler 
violently opposed. Violence was always Chandler's note, 
so much so that a scornful opponent once called him 
"Xantippe in pants." 

Lincoln had given Chandler a cause of offense in Mc- 
Clellan's elevation to the head of the army.* McClellan 
was a Democrat. There can be little doubt that Lincoln 
took the fact into account in selecting him. Shortly be- 
fore, Lincoln had aimed to placate the Republicans by 
showing high honor to their popular hero, Fremont. 

* Strictly speaking he did not become head of the army until the 
retirement of Scott in November. Practically, he was supreme almost 
from the moment of his arrival in Washington. 



THE JACOBIN CLUB 193 

When the catastrophe occurred at Bull Run, Fremont was 
a major-general commanding the Western Department with 
headquarters at St. Louis. He was one of the same violent 
root-and-branch wing of the Republicans — the Radicals of 
a latter day — of which Chandler was a leader. The temper 
of that wing had already been revealed by Senator Baker 
in his startling pronouncement : "We of the North control 
the Union, and we are going to govern our own L^^nion in 
our own way." Chandler was soon to express it still more 
exactly, saying, "A rebel has sacrificed all his rights. He 
has no right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness."^ 
Here was that purpose to narrowing nationalism into North- 
ernism, even to radicalism, and to make the war an outlet 
for a sectional ferocity, which Lincoln was so firmly de- 
termined to prevent. All things considered, the fact that 
on the day following Bull Run he did not summon the Re- 
publican hero to Washington, that he did summon a Demo- 
crat, was significant. It opened his long duel with the 
extremists. 

The vindictive spirit of the extremists had been re- 
buffed by Lincoln in another way. Shortly after Bull 
Run, Wade and Chandler appealed to Lincoln to call out 
negro soldiers. Chandler said that he did not care whether 
or no this would produce a servile insurrection in the South. 
Lincoln's refusal made another count in the score of the 
extremists against him.^ 

During the late summer of i86r, Chandler, Wade, 
Trumbull, were all busily organizing their forces for an 
attack on the Administration. Trumbull, indeed, seemed 
out of place in that terrible company. In time, he found 
that he was out of place. At a crucial moment he came 
over to Lincoln. But not until he had done yeoman's 



194 LINCOLN 

service with Lincoln's bitterest enemies. The clue to his 
earlier course was an honest conviction that Lincoln, 
though well-intentioned, was weak/ Was this the nemesis 
of Lincoln's pliability in action during the first stage of 
his Presidency? It may be. The firm inner Lincoln, the 
unyielding thinker of the first message, was not appreciated 
even by well-meaning men like Trumbull. The inner and 
the outer Lincoln were still disconnected. And the outer, 
in his caution, in his willingness to be instructed, in his oppo- 
sition to extreme measures, made the inevitable impression 
that temperance makes upon fury, caution upon rashness. 

Throughout the late summer, Lincoln was the target of 
many attacks, chiefly from the Abolitionists. Somehow, 
in the previous spring, they had got it into their heads that 
at heart he was one of them, that he waited only for a vic- 
tory to declare the war a crusade of abolition.^ When the 
crisis passed and a Democrat was put at the head of the 
army, while Fremont was left in the relative obscurity of 
St. Louis, Abolition bitterness became voluble. The Crit- 
tenden Resolution was scoffed at as an "ill-timed revival 
of the policy of conciliation." Threats against the Ad- 
ministration revived, taking the old form of demands for 
a wholly new Cabinet. The keener-sighted Abolitionists 
had been alarmed by the first message, by what seemed to 
them its ominous silence as to slavery. Late in July, Emer- 
son said in conversation, "If the Union is incapable of 
securing universal freedom, its disruption were as the 
breaking up of a frog-pond."^ An outcry was raised be- 
cause Federal generals did not declare free all the slaves 
who in any way came into their hands. The Abolitionists 
found no solace in the First Confiscation Act which pro^ 
vided that an owner should lose his claim to a slave, had 



THE JACOBIN CLUB ¥9,5 

the slave been used to assist the Confederate government. 
They were enraged by an order, early in August, inform- 
ing generals that it was the President's desire "that all 
existing rights in all the States be fully respected and main- 
tained; in cases of fugitives from the loyal Slave States, 
the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law by the ordinary 
forms of judicial proceedings must be respected by the 
military authorities; in the disloyal States the Confiscation 
Act of Congress must be your guide."^*^ Especially, the 
Abolitionists were angered because of Lincoln's care for 
the forms of law in those Slave States that had not seceded. 
They vented their bitterness in a famous sneer — "The 
President would like to have God on his side, but he must 
have Kentucky." 

A new temper was forming throughout the land. It 
was not merely the old Abolitionism. It was a blend of 
all those elemxcnts of violent feeling which war inevitably 
releases; it was the concentration of all these elements on 
the issue of Abolition as upon a terrible weapon ; it was the 
resurrection of that primitive blood-lust which lies dormant 
in every peaceful nation like a sleeping beast. This dread- 
ful power rose out of its sleep and confronted, menacing, 
the statesman who of all our statesmen was most keenly 
aware of its evil, most determined to put it under or to 
perish in the attempt. With its appearance, the deepest 
of all the issues involved, according to Lincoln's way of 
thinking, was brought to a head. Was the Republic to 
issue from the war a worthy or an unworthy nation ? That 
was pretty definitely a question of whether Abraham Lin- 
coln or, say, Zachary Chandler, was to control its policy. 

A vain, weak man precipitated the inevitable struggle 
between these two. Fremont had been flattered to the 



196 LINCOLN 

skies. He conceived himself a genius. He was persuaded 
that the party of the new temper, the men who may 
fairly be called the Vindictives, were lords of the 
ascendent. He mistook their volubility for the voice of 
the nation. He determined to defy Lincoln. He issued 
a proclamation freeing the slaves of all who had "taken an 
active part" with the enemies of the United States in the 
field. He set up a "bureau of abolition." 

Lincoln first heard of Fremont's proclamation through 
the newspapers. His instant action was taken in his own 
extraordinarily gentle way. "I think there is great dan- 
ger," he wrote, "that the closing paragraph (of Fremont's 
proclamation) in relation to the confiscation of property 
and the liberating of slaves of traitorous owners, will 
alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them against 
us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. 
Allow me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own 
motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform" to the 
Confiscation Act. He added, "This letter is written in the 
spirit of caution, not of censure. "^^ 

Fremont was not the man to understand instruction of 
this sort. He would make no compromise with the Presi- 
dent. K Lincoln wished to go over his head and rescind 
his order let him do so — and take the consequences. 
Lincoln quietly did so. His battle with the Vindictives 
was on. For a moment it seemed as if he had destroyed 
his cause. So loud was the outcry of the voluble people, 
that any one might have been excused momentarily for 
thinking that all the North had risen against him. Great 
meetings of protest were held. Eminent men — even such 
fine natures as Bryant — condemned his course. 

In the wake of the incident, when it was impossible to 



THE JACOBIN CLUB 197 

say how significant the outcry really was, Chandler, who 
was staunch for Fremont, began his active interference 
with the management of the army. McClellan had in- 
sisted on plenty of time in which to drill the new three- 
year recruits who were pouring into Washington. He did 
not propose to repeat the experience of General McDowell. 
On the other hand, Chandler was bent on forcing him 
into action. He, Wade and Trumbull combined, attempt- 
ing to bring things to pass in a way to suit themselves 
and their faction. To these men and their followers, clever 
young Hay gave the apt name of "The Jacobin Club." 

They began their campaign by their second visit to the 
army. Wade was their chief spokesman. He urged Mc- 
Clellan to advance at once; to risk an unsuccessful battle 
rather than continue to stand still; the country wanted 
something done; a defeat could easily be repaired by the 
swarming recruits. ^^ 

This callous attitude got no response from the Com- 
manding General. The three Senators turned upon Lincoln. 
"This evening," writes Hay in his diary on October 
twenty-sixth, "the Jacobin Club represented by Trumbull, 
Chandler and Wade, came out to worry the Administra- 
tion into a battle. The agitation of the summer is to be 
renewed. The President defended McClellan's deliberate- 
ness." The next night "we went over to Seward's and 
found Chandler and Wade there." They repeated their 
reckless talk; a battle must be fought; defeat would be 
no worse than delay; "and a great deal more trash." 

But Lincoln was not to be moved. He and Hay called 
upon McClellan. The President deprecated this new 
manifestation of popular impatience, but said it was a real- 
ity and should be taken into account. "At the same time, 



198 LINCOLN 

General," said he, "you must not fight until you are 
ready."i3 

At this moment of extreme tension occurred the 
famous incident of the seizure of the Confederate envoys, 
Mason and SHdell, who were passengers on the British 
merchant ship, the Trent. These men had run the block- 
ade which had now drawn its strangling line along the 
whole coast of the Confederacy; they had boarded the 
Trent at Havana, and under the law of nations were safe 
from capture. But Captain Wilkes of the United States 
Navy, more zealous than discreet, overhauled the Trent 
and took off the two Confederates. Every thoughtless 
Northerner went wuld with joy. At last the government 
had done something. Even the Secretary of the Navy so 
far forgot himself as to telegraph to Wilkes "Congratulate 
you on the great public service you have rendered in the 
capture of the rebel emissaries. "^^ Chandler promptly 
applauded the seizure and v/hen it was suggested that 
perhaps the envoys should be released he at once arrayed 
himself in opposition. ^^ With the truculent Jacobins ready 
to close battle should the government do its duty, with the 
country still echoing to cheers for Fremont and hisses for 
the President, with nothing to his credit in the way of 
military success, Lincoln faced a crisis. He was carried 
through the crisis by two strong men. Sumner, head and 
front of Abolitionism but also a great lawyer, came at 
once to his assistance. And what could a thinking Abo- 
litionist say after that! Seward skilfully saved the face 
of the government by his management of the negotiation. 
The envoys were released and sent to England. 

It was the only thing to do, but Chandler and all his 
sort had opposed it. The Abolition fury against the gov- 



THE JACOBIN CLUB 199 

ernment was at fever heat. Wendell Phillips in a speech 
at New York denounced the Administration as having no 
definite purpose in the war, and was interrupted by frantic 
cheers for Fremont. McClellan, patiently drilling his 
army, was, in the eyes of the Jacobins, doing nothing. 
Congress had assembled. There was every sign that 
troubled waters lay just ahead. 



XIX 

THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS 

The temper animating Hay's "Jacobins" formed a new 
and really formidable danger which menaced Lincoln at the 
close of 1 86 1. But had he been anything of an oppor- 
tunist, it would have offered him an unrivaled opportunity. 
For a leader who sought personal power, this raging sav- 
agery, with Its triple alliance of an organized political ma- 
chine, a devoted fanaticism, and the war fury, was a chance 
in ten thousand. It led to his door the steed of militarism, 
shod and bridled, champing upon the bit, and invited him 
to leap into the saddle. Ten words of acquiescence in the 
program of the Jacobins, and the dreaded role of the man 
on horseback was his to command. 

The fallacy that politics are primarily intellectual de- 
cisions upon stated issues, the going forth of the popular 
mind to decide between programs presented to it by cir- 
cumstances, receives a brilliant reputation in the course of 
the powerful minority that was concentrating around the 
three great "Jacobins." The subjective side of politics, 
also the temperamental side, here found expression. State- 
craft is an art; creative statesmen are like other artists. 
Just as the painter or the poet, seizing upon old subjects, 
uses them as outlets for his particular temper, his particular 
emotion, and as the temper, the emotion are what counts 
in his work, so with statesmen, with Lincoln on the one 
hand, with Chandler at the opposite extreme. 

200 



THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS 201 

The Jacobins stood first of all for the sudden reaction 
of bold fierce natures from a long political repression. 
They had fought their way to leadership as captains of an 
opposition. They were artists who had been denied an 
opportunity of expression. By a sudden turn of fortune, it 
had seemed to come within their grasp. Temperamentally 
they were fighters. Battle for them was an end in itself. 
The thought of conquest sang to them like the morning 
stars. Had they been literary men, their favorite poetry 
would have been the sacking of Troy town. Furthermore, 
they were intensely provincial. Undoubted as was their 
courage, they had also the valor of ignorance. They had 
the provincial's disdain for the other side of the horizon, 
his unbounded confidence in his ability to whip all creation. 
Chandler, scornfully brushing aside a possible foreign war, 
typified their mood. 

And in quiet veto of all their hopes rose against them 
the apparently easy-going, the smiling, story-telling, unre- 
vengeful, new man at the White House. It is not to be 
wondered that they spent the summer laboring to build up 
a party against him, that they turned eagerly to the new 
session of Congress, hoping to consolidate a faction opposed 
to Lincoln. 

His second message,^ though without a word of obvious 
defiance, set him squarely against them on all their vital 
contentions. The winter of 1 861 -1862 is the strangest 
period of Lincoln's career. Although the two phases of 
him, the outer and the inner, were, in point of fact, moving 
rapidly toward their point of fusion, apparently they were 
further away than ever before. Outwardly, his most con- 
spicuous vacillations were in this winter and in the follow- 
ing spring. Never before or after did he allow himself to 



202 LINCOLN 

be overshadowed so darkly by his advisers in all the con- 
cerns of action. In amazing contrast, in all the concerns 
of thought, he v^^as never more entirely himself. The sec- 
ond message, prepared when the country rang with what 
seemed to be a general frenzy against him, did not give 
ground one inch. This was all the more notable because 
his Secretary of War had tried to force his hand. Cameron 
had the reputation of being about the most astute politician 
in America. Few people attributed to him the embarrass- 
ment of principles. And Cameron, in the late autumn, after 
closely observing the drift of things, determined that Fre- 
mont had hit it off correctly, that the crafty thing to do 
was to come out for Abolition as a war policy. In a word, 
he decided to go over to the Jacobins. He put into his 
annual report a recommendation of Chandler's plan for 
organizing an army of freed slaves and sending it against 
the Confederacy. Advanced copies of this report had been 
sent to the press before Lincoln knew of it. He per- 
emptorily ordered their recall, and the exclusion of this 
suggestion from the text of the report.^ 

On the heels of this refusal to concede to Chandler one 
of his cherished schemes, the second message was sent to 
Congress. The watchful and exasperated Jacobins found 
abundant offense in Its omissions. On the whole great sub- 
ject of possible emancipation It was blankly silent. The 
nearest it came to this subject was one suggestion which 
applied only to those captured slaves who had been forfeited 
by the disloyal owners through being employed to assist the 
Confederate government. Lincoln advised that after re- 
ceiving their freedom they be sent out of the country and 
colonized "at some place, or places, In a climate congenial 
to them." Beyond this there was nothing bearing on the 



THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS 203 

slavery question except the admonition — so unsatisfactory 
to Chandler and all his sort — that while "the Union must 
be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be 
employed," Congress should "not be in haste to determine 
that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the 
loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable." 

Lincoln was entirely clear in his own mind that there 
was but one way to head off the passion of destruction that 
was rioting in the Jacobin temper. "In considering the 
policy to be adopted in suppressing the insurrection, I have 
been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this 
purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless 
revolutionary struggle. I have, therefore, in every case, 
thought it proper to keep the integrity of tlie Union promi- 
nent as the primary object of the contest on our part, 
leaving all questions which are not of vital military im- 
portance to the more deliberate action of the Legislature." 
He persisted in regarding the war as an insurrection of the 
"disloyal portion of the American people," not as an external 
struggle between the North and the South. 

Finally, the culmination of the message was a long elab- 
orate argument upon the significance of the war to the 
working classes. His aim was to show that the whole trend 
of the Confederate movement was toward a conclusion 
which would "place capital on an equal footing with, if not 
above, labor, in the structure of government." Thus, as 
so often before, he insisted on his own view of the signifi- 
cance in American politics of all issues involving slavery — 
their bearing on the condition of the free laborer. In a 
very striking passage, often overlooked, he ranked himself 
once more, as first of all, a statesman of "the people," in 
the limited class sense of the term. "Labor is prior to and 



204 LINCOLN 

independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor 
and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. 
Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the 
higher consideration." But so far is he from any revolu- 
tionary purpose, that he adds immediately, "Capital has its 
rights which are as worthy of protection as any other 
rights." His crowning vision is not communism. His 
ideal world is one of universal opportunity, with labor freed 
of every hindrance, with all its deserving members acquir- 
ing more and more of the benefits of property. 

Such a message had no consolation for Chandler, Wade, 
or, as he then was, for Trumbull. They looked about for 
a way to retaliate. And now tw^o things became plain. 
That "agitation of the summer" to which Hay refers, had 
borne fruit, but not enough fruit. Many members of Con- 
gress who had been swept along by the President's policy 
in July had been won over in the reaction against him and 
were ripe for manipulation; but it was not yet certain that 
they held the balance of power in Congress. To lock 
horns with the Administration, in December, would have 
been so rash a move that even such bold men as Chandler 
and Wade avoided it. Instead, they devised an astute plan 
of campaign. Trumbull was Chairman of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, and in that important position would 
bide his time to bring pressure to bear on the President 
through his influence upon legislation. Wade and Chandler 
would go in for propaganda. But they would do so in dis- 
guise. What more natural than that Congress should take 
an active interest in the army, should wish to do all in its 
power to "assist" the President in rendering the army 
efficient. For that purpose it was proposed to establish a 
joint committee of the two Houses having no function but 



THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS 205 

to look into military needs and report to Congress. The 
proposal was at once accepted and its crafty backers secured 
a committee dominated entirely by themselves. Chandler 
was a member ; Wade became Chairman.^ This Committee 
on the Conduct of the War became at once an inquisition. 
Though armed with no weapon but publicity, its close con- 
nection with congressional intrigue, its hostility to the 
President, the dramatic effect of any revelations it chose to 
make or any charges it chose to bring, clothed it indirectly 
with immense power. Its inner purpose may be stated in 
the words of one of its members, "A more vigorous prose- 
cution of the war and less tenderness toward slavery."* 
Its mode of procedure was in constant interrogation of 
generals, in frequent advice to the President, and on occasion 
in threatening to rouse Congress against him.^ A session 
of the Committee was likely to be followed by a call on the 
President of either Chandler or Wade. 

The Committee began immediately summoning generals 
before it to explain what the army was doing. And every 
general was made to understand that what the Committee 
wanted, what Congress wanted, what the country wanted, 
was an advance^ — "something doing" as soon as possible. 

And now appeared another characteristic of the mood 
of these furious men. They had become suspicious, hon- 
estly suspicious. This suspiciousness grew with their 
power and was rendered frantic by being crossed. Who- 
ever disagreed with them was instantly an object of distrust; 
any plan that contradicted their views was at once an evi- 
dence of treason. 

The earliest display of this eagerness to see traitors in 
every bush concerned a skinnish that took place at Ball's 
Bluff in Virginia. It was badly managed and the Federal 



2o6 LINCOLN 

loss, proportionately, was large. The officer held respon- 
sible was General Stone. Unfortunately for him, he was 
particularly obnoxious to the Abolitionists ; he had returned 
fugitive slaves; and when objection was made by such 
powerful Abolitionists as Governor Andrew of Massachu- 
setts, Stone gave reign to a sharp tongue. In the early 
days of the session, Roscoe Conkling told the story of Ball's 
Bluff for the benefit of Congress in a brilliant, harrowing 
speech. In a flash the rumor spread that the dead at Ball's 
Bluff were killed by design, that Stone was a traitor, that — ■ 
perhaps ! — who could say ? — there were bigger traitors 
higher up. Stone was summoned before the Inquisition.® 

While Stone was on the rack, metaphorically, while the 
Committee was showing him every brutality in its power, 
refusing to accjuaint him with the evidence against him, 
intimating that they were able to convict him of treason — 
between the fifth and the eleventh of January — a crisis arose 
in the War Office. Cameron had failed to ingratiate him- 
self with the rising powers. Old political enemies in Con- 
gress were implacable. Scandals in his Department gave 
rise to sweeping charges of speculation. 

There is scarcely another moment when Lincoln's 
power was so precarious. In one respect, in their impa- 
tience, the Committee reflected faithfully the country at 
large. And by the irony of fate McClellan at this crucial 
hour, had fallen ill. After waiting for his recovery during 
several weeks, Lincoln ventured with much hesitation to 
call a conference of generals.'^ They were sitting during the 
Stone investigation, producing no result except a distrac- 
tion in councils, devising plans that were thrown over the 
moment the Commanding General arose from his bed. A 
vote in Congress a few days previous had amounted to a 



THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS 207 

censure of the Administration. It was taken upon the Crit- 
tenden Resolution which had been introduced a second time. 
Of those who had voted for it in July, so many now aban- 
doned the Administration that this resolution, the clear 
embodiment of Lincoln's policy, was laid on the table, 
seventy-one to sixty-five.^ Lincoln's hope for an all-parties 
government was receiving little encouragement. The Demo- 
crats were breaking into factions, while the control of their 
party organization was falling into the hands of a group 
of inferior politicians who were content to "play politics" 
in the most unscrupulous fashion. Both the Secretary of 
War and the Secretary of State had authorized arbitrary 
arrests. Men in New York and New England had been 
thrown into prison. The privilege of the writ of habeas 
corpus had been denied them on the mere belief of the gov- 
ernment that they were conspiring with its enemies. Be- 
cause of these arrests, sharp criticism was being aimed at 
the Administration both within and without Congress. 

For all these reasons, the government at Washington 
appeared to be tottering. Desperate remedies seemed im- 
perative. Lincoln decided to make every concession he 
could make without letting go his central purpose. First, 
he threw over Cameron ; he compelled him to resign though 
he saved his face by appointing him minister to Russia. 
But who was to take his place? At this critical moment, 
the choice of a new Secretary of War was a political prob- 
lem of exacting difficulty. Just why Lincoln chose a sul- 
len, dictatorial lawyer whose experience in no way prepared 
him for the office, has never been disclosed. Two facts 
appear to explain it. Edwin M. Stanton was tempera- 
mentally just the man to become a good brother to 
Chandler and Wade. Both of them urged him upon Lincoln 



2o8 LINCOLN 

as successor to Cameron.^ Furthermore, Stanton hitherto 
had been a Democrat. His services in Buchanan's Cabinet 
as Attorney-General had made him a national figure. Who 
else linked the Democrats and the Jacobins ? 

However, for almost any one but Lincoln, there was an 
objection that it would have been hard to overcome. No 
one has ever charged Stanton with politeness. A gloomy 
excitable man, of uncertain health, temperamentally an over- 
worker, chronically apprehensive, utterly without the saving 
grace of humor, he was capable of insufferable rudeness — 
one reason, perhaps, why Chandler liked him. He and 
Lincoln had met but once. As associate council in a case at 
Cincinnati, three years before, Lincoln had been treated so 
contemptuously by Stanton that he had returned home in 
pained humiliation. Since his inauguration, Stanton had 
been one of his most vituperative critics. Was this insolent 
scold to be invited into the Cabinet? Had not Lincoln at 
this juncture been in the full tide of selflessness, surely 
some compromise would have been made with the Com- 
mittee, a secretary found less offensive personally to the 
President. Lincoln disregarded the personal consideration. 
The candidate of Chandler and Wade became secretary. It 
was the beginning of an intimate alliance between the Com- 
mittee and the War Office. Lincoln had laid up for himself 
much trouble that he did not foresee. 

The day the new Secretary took office, he received from 
the Committee a report upon General Stone. ^'^ Subse- 
quently, in the Senate, Wade denied that the Committee 
had advised the arrest of Stone. ^^ Doubtless the statement 
was techincally correct. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt 
that the inquisitors were wholly in sympathy with the Sec- 
retary when, shortly afterward, Stone was seized upon 



THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS 209 

Stanton's order, conveyed to a fortress and imprisoned 
without trial. 

This was the Dreyfus case of the Civil War. Stone 
was never tried and never vindicated. He was eventually 
released upon parole and after many tantalizing disappoint- 
ments permitted to rejoin the army. What gives the event 
significance is its evidence of the power, at that moment, of 
the Committee, and of the relative weakness of the Presi- 
dent. Lincoln's eagerness to protect condemned soldiers 
survives in many anecdotes. Hay confides to his diary that 
he was sometimes "amused at the eagerness with which the 
President caught at any fact which would justify" clem- 
ency. And yet, when Stanton informed him of the arrest 
of Stone, he gloomily acquiesced. "I hope you have good 
reasons for it," he said. Later he admitted that he knew 
very little about the case. But he did not order Stone's 
release. 

Lincoln had his own form of ruthlessness. The selfless 
man, by dealing with others in the same extraordinary way 
in which he deals with himself, may easily under the pres- 
sure of extreme conditions become impersonal in his think- 
ing upon duty. The morality of such a state of mind is a 
question for the philosopher. The historian must content 
himself with pointing out the only condition that redeems 
it — if anything redeems it. The leader who thinks imper- 
sonally about others and personally about himself — what 
need among civilized people to characterize him? Borgia, 
Louis XIV, Napoleon. If we are ever to pardon imper- 
sonal thinking it is only in the cases of men who begin by 
effacing themselves. The Lincoln who accepted Stanton as 
a Cabinet officer, who was always more or less overshadowed 
by the belief that in saving the government he was himself 



210 LINCOLN 

to perish, is explicable, at least, when individual men became 
for him, as at times they did, impersonal factors in a terrible 
dream. 

There are other considerations in the attempt to give a 
moral value to his failure to interfere in behalf of Stone. 
The first four months of 1862 are not only his feeblest 
period as a ruler, the period when he was barely able to 
hold his own, but also the period when he was least definite 
as a personality, when his courage and his vitality seemed 
ebbing tides. Again, his spirit was in eclipse. Singularly 
enough, this was the darkness before the dawn. June of 
1862 saw the emergence, with a suddenness difficult to 
explain, of the historic Lincoln. But in January of that 
year he was facing downward into the mystery of his last 
eclipse. All the dark places of his heredity must be searched 
for clues to this strange experience. There are moments, 
especially under strain of a personal bereavement that fell 
upon him in February, when his will seemed scarcely a 
reality; when, as a directing force he may be said momen- 
tarily to have vanished ; when he is hardly more than a ghost 
among his advisers. The far-off existence of weak old 
Thomas cast its parting shadow across his son's career. 

However, even our Dreyfus case drew from Lincoln 
another display of that settled conviction of his that part 
of his function was to be scapegoat. 'T serve," which in a 
way might be taken as his motto always, was peculiarly 
his motto, and likewise his redemption, in this period of 
his weakness. The enemies of the Committee in Congress 
took the matter up and denounced Stanton. Thereupon, 
Wade flamed forth, criticizing Lincoln for his leniency, 
venting his fury on all those who were tender of their 
enemies, storming that "mercy to traitors is cruelty to loyal 




Lincoln and Tad 



THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS 211 

men."*- Lincoln replied neither to Wade nor to his antag- 
onists; but, -udthout explaining the case, without a word 
upon the relation to it of the Secretary and the Committee, 
he informed the Senate that the President was alone respon- 
sible for the arrest and imprisonment of General Stone.** 



XX 

IS CONGRESS THE PRESIDENT'S MASTER? 

The period of Lincoln's last eclipse is a period of rela- 
tive silence. But his mind was not inactive. He did not 
cease thinking upon the deep theoretical distinctions that 
were separating him by a steadily widening chasm from the 
most powerful faction in Congress. In fact, his mental 
powers were, if an^-thing, more keen than ever before. 
Probably, it was the very clearness of the mental vision that 
enfeebled him when it came to action. He saw his difficul- 
ties with such crushing certainty. During this trying period 
there is in him somediing of Hamlet. 

The reaction to his ideas, to what is either expressed or 
implied, in the first and second messages, was prompt to 
appear. The Jacobins did not confine their activities within 
the scope of the terrible Committee. Wade and Chandler 
w'orked assiduously undermining his strength in Congress. 
Trumbull, though always less extreme than they, was still 
the victim of his delusion that Lincoln was a poor creature, 
that the only way to save the country was to go along with 
those grim men of strength who dominated the Commit- 
tee. In Januar}-, a formidable addition appeared in the 
ranks of Lincoln's opponents. Thaddeus Stevens made a 
speech in the House that marks a chapter. It brought to 
a head a cloud of floating opposition and clearly defined 
an issue involving the central proposition in Lincoln's theory 
of the government. 

2X2 



IS CONGRESS THE MASTER? 213 

The Constitution of the United States, in its detailed 
provisions, is designed chiefly to meet the exigencies of 
peace. With regard to the abnormal conditions of war, it 
is relatively silent. Certain "war powers" are recognized 
but not clearly defined ; nor is it made perfectly plain what 
branch of the government possesses them. The machinery 
for their execution is assumed but not described — as when 
the Constitution provides that the privileges of the writ of 
habeas corpus are to be suspended only in time of war, 
but does not specify by whom, or in what way, the sus- 
pension is to be effected. Are those undefined "war 
powers," which are the most sovereign functions of our 
government, vested in Congress or in the President? Lin- 
coln, from the moment he defined his policy, held tena- 
ciously to the theory that all these extraordinary powers 
are vested in the President. By implication, at least, this 
idea is in the first message. Throughout the latter part 
of 1 861, he put the theory into practice. Whatever seemed 
to him necessary in a state of war, he did, even to the 
arresting of suspected persons, refusing them the privilege 
of the habeas corpus, and retaining them in prison without 
trial. During 1861, he left the exercise of this sovereign 
authority to the discretion of the two Secretaries of War 
and of State. 

Naturally, the Abolitionists, the Jacobins, the Demo- 
cratic machine, conscientious believers in the congressional 
theory of the government, every one who for any reason, 
wanted to hit the Administration, united in a chorus of 
wrath over arbitrary arrests. The greatest orator of the 
time, Wendell Phillips, the final voice of Abolition, flayed 
the government in public speeches for reducing America to 
an absolute despotism. Trumbull introduced into the 



214 LINCOLN 

Senate a resolution calling upon the President for a state- 
ment of the facts as to what he had actually done.^ 

But the subject of arrests was but the prelude to the 
play. The real issue was the theory of the government. 
Where in last analysis does the Constitution place the ulti- 
mate powers of sovereignty, the war powers ? In Congress 
or in the President? Therefore, in concrete terms, is Con- 
gress the President's master, or is it only one branch of 
the government Avith a definite but limited activity of its 
own, without that sweeping sovereign authority which in 
course of time has been acquired by its parent body, the 
Parliament of Great Britain? 

On this point Lincoln never wavered. From first to 
last, he was determined not to admit that Congress had 
the powers of Parliament. No sooner had the politicians 
made out this attitude than their attack on it began. It did 
not cease until Lincoln's death. It added a second consti- 
tutional question to the issues of the war. Not only the 
issue whether a State had a right to secede, but also the 
issue of the President's possession of the war powers of 
the Contitution. Time and again the leaders of dis- 
affection in his own party, to say nothing of the violent 
Democrats, exhausted their rhetoric denouncing Lincoln's 
position. They did not deny themselves the delights of 
the sneer. Senator Grimes spoke of a call on the Presi- 
dent as an attempt "to approach the footstool of power 
enthroned at the other end of the Avenue."- Wade ex- 
panded the idea: "We ought to have a committee to wait 
on him whenever we send him a bill, to know what his 
royal pleasure is with regard to it. . . . We are told 
that some gentlemen . . . have been to see the Presi- 
dent. Some gentlemen are very fortunate in that respect. 



IS CONGRESS THE MASTER? • ^15 

. . . Nobody can see him, it seems, except some privi- 
leged gentlemen who are charged with his constitutional 
conscience."^ As Lincoln kept his doors open to all the 
world, as no one came and went with greater freedom than 
the Chairman of the Committee, the sneer was — what one 
might expect of the Committee. Sumner said: "I claim 
for Congress all that belongs to any government in the 
exercise of the rights of war." Disagreement with him, 
he treated with unspeakable disdain: "Born in ignorance 
and pernicious in consequence, it ought to be received with 
hissings of contempt, and just in proportion as it obtains 
acceptance, with execration."* Henry Wilson declared 
that, come what might, the policy of the Administration 
would be shaped by the two Houses. "I had rather give 
a policy to the Pi-esident of the United States than take a 
policy from the President of the United States."^ Trum- 
bull thundered against the President's theory as the last 
word in despotism.^ 

Such is the mental perspective in which to regard the 
speech of Stevens of January 22, 1862. With masterly 
clearness, he put his finger on the heart of the matter : 
the exceptional problems of a time of war, problems that 
can not be foreseen and prepared for by anticipatory legis- 
lation, may be solved in but one way, by the temporary 
creation of the dictator; this is as true of modern America 
as of ancient Rome; so far, most people are agreed; but 
this extraordinary function must not be vested In the Execu- 
tive ; on the contrary, it must be, it is, vested in the Legis- 
lature. Stevens did not hesitate to push his theory to its 
limit. He was not afraid of making the Legislature in 
time of war the irresponsible judge of its own acts. Con- 
gress, said he, has all possible powers of government, even 



2i6 LINCOLN 

the dictator's power; it could declare itself a dictator; 
under certain circumstances he was willing that it should 
do so7 

The intellectual boldness of Lincoln was matched by an 
equal boldness. Between them, he and Stevens had per- 
fectly defined their issue. Granted that a dictator was 
needed, which should it be — the President or Congress? 

In the hesitancy at the White House during the last 
eclipse, in the public distress and the personal grief, Lin- 
coln withheld himself from this debate. No great utterances 
break the gloom of this period. Nevertheless, what may 
be considered his reply to Stevens is to be found. Buried 
in the forgotten portions of tlie Congressional Globe is a 
speech that surely was inspired — or, if not directly inspired, 
so close a reflection of the President's thinking that it 
comes to the same thing at the end. 

Its author, or apparent author, was one of the few 
serene figures in that Thirty-Seventh Congress which was 
swept so pitilessly by epidemics of passion. When Doug- 
las, after coming out valiantly for the Union and holding 
up Lincoln's hands at the hour of crisis, suddenly died, the 
Illinois Legislature named as his successor in the Senate, 
Orville Henry Browning. The new Senator was Lincoln's 
intimate friend. Their points of view, their temperaments 
were similar. Browning shared Lincoln's magnanimity, 
his hatred of extremes, his eagerness not to allow the war 
to degenerate into revolution. In the early part of 1862 
he was Lincoln's spokesman in the Senate. Now that the 
temper of Wade and Chandler, the ruthlessness that dom- 
inated the Committee, had drawn unto itself such a cohort 
of allies; now that all their thinking had been organized 
by a fearless mind; there was urgent need for a masterly 



IS CONGRESS THE MASTER? 217 

reply. Did Lincoln feel unequal, at the moment, to this 
great task ? Very probably he did. Anyhow, it was 
Browning who made the reply, ^ a reply so exactly in his 
friend's vein, that — there you are ! 

His aim was to explain the nature of those war powers 
of the government "which lie dormant during time of 
peace," and therefore he frankly put the cjuestion, "Is Con- 
gress the government?" Senator Fessenden, echoing 
Stevens had said, "There is no limit on the powers of Con- 
gress; everything must yield to the force of martial law 
as resolved by Congress," "There, sir," said Browning, 
"is as broad and deep a foundation for absolute despotism 
as was ever laid." He rang the changes on the need to 
"protect minorities from the oppression and tyranny of 
excited majorities." 

He went on to lay the basis of all Lincoln's subsequent 
defense of the presidential theory as opposed to the con- 
gressional theory, by formulating two propositions which 
reappear in some of Lincoln's most famous papers. Con- 
gress is not a safe vessel for extraordinary powers, because 
in our system we have difficulty in bringing it definitely to 
an account under any sort of plebiscite. On the other 
hand the President, if he abuses the war powers "when 
peace returns, is answerable to the civil power for that 
abuse." 

But Browning was not content to reason on generalities. 
Asserting that Congress could no more command the army 
than it could adjudicate a case, he further asserted that 
the Supreme Court had settled the matter and had lodged 
the war powers in the President. He cited a decision 
called forth by the legal question, "Can a Circuit Court of 
the United States inquire whether a President had acted 



2i8 LINCOLN 

rightly in calling out the militia of a State to suppress an 
insurrection?" "The elevated office of the President," said 
the Court, "chosen as he is by the People of the United 
States, and the high responsibility he could not fail to feel 
when acting in a case of such moment, appear to furnish 
as strong safeguards against the wilful abuse of power as 
human prudence and foresight could well devise. At all 
events, it is conferred upon him by the Constitution and 
the laws of the United States, and therefore, must be re- 
spected and enforced in its judicial tribunals."^ 

Whether or not constitutional lawyers would agree with 
Browning in the conclusion he drew from this decision, it 
was plainly the bed rock of his thought. He believed that 
the President — w^hatever your mere historian might have 
to say — was in point of fact the exponent of the people as 
a whole, and therefore the proper vessel for the ultimate 
rights of a sovereign, rights that only the people possess, 
that only the people can delegate. And this was Lincoln's 
theory. Roughly speaking, he conceived of the presidential 
office about as if it were the office of Tribune of the People. 

There was still another reason why both Lincoln and 
Browning feared to yield anything to the theory of con- 
gressional supremacy. It was, in their minds, not only the 
general question of all Congresses but immediately of this 
particular Congress. An assembly in which the temper of 
Wade and Chandler, of Stevens and Sumner, was entering 
the ascendent, was an assembly to be feared ; its supremacy 
was to be denied, its power was to be fought. 

Browning did not close without a startling passage 
flung square in the teetli of the apostles of fury. He 
summed up the opposite temper, Lincoln's temper, in his 
description of "Our brethren of the South — for I am will- 



IS CONGRESS THE MASTER? 219 

ingf to call them brethren ; my heart yet yearns toward them 
with a fervency of love which even their treason has not 
all extinguished,, which tempts me constantly to say in 
their behalf, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do.' " He pleaded with the Senate not to consider 
them "as public enemies but as insurgent citizens only," 
and advocated an Act of Amnesty restoring all political 
and property rights "instantly upon their return to alle- 
giance and submission to the authority of the government." 
Had this narrowly constitutional issue arisen in quiet 
times, who can say how slight might have been its signifi- 
cance? But Fate had decreed that it should arise in the 
stormiest moment of our history. ]\Iillions of men and 
women who cared nothing for constitutional theories, who 
were governed by that passion to see immediate results 
which the thoughtless ever confuse with achievement, these 
were becoming hysterical over delay. Why did not the 
government do something? Everywhere voices were raised 
accusing the President of cowardice. The mania of sus- 
picion was not confined to the Committee. The thoughts 
of a multitude were expressed by Congressman Hickman 
in his foolish w^ords, "These are days of irresponsibility 
and imbecility, and we are required to perform two offices — 
the office of legislator and the office of President." The 
better part of a year had passed since the day of Sumter, 
and still tlie government had no military success to 
its credit. An impetuous people that lacked experience of 
war, that had been accustomed in unusual measure to have 
its wishes speedily gratified, must somehow be marshalled 
behind the government, unless — the alternative was the 
capture of power by the Congressional Cabal that was 
forming against the President. 



220 LINCOLN 

Entering upon the dark days of the first half of 1862, 
Lincoln had no delusions about the task immediately before 
him. He must win battles; otherwise, he saw no way of 
building up that popular support which alone would enable 
him to keep the direction of policy in the hands of the 
Executive, to keep it out of the hands of Congress. In a 
word, the standing or falling of his power appeared to have 
been committed to the keeping of the army. What the 
army would do with it, save his policy or wreck his policy, 
was to no small degree a question of the character and the 
abilities of the Commanding General. 



XXI 



THE STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 

George Brinton McClellan, when at the age of 
thirty-four he was raised suddenly to a dizzying height of 
fame and power, was generally looked upon as a prodig}'. 
Though he was not that, he had a real claim to distinction. 
Had destiny been considerate, permitting him to rise 
gradually and to mature as he rose, he might have earned 
a stable reputation high among those who are not quite 
great. He had done well at West Point, and as a very 
young officer in the Mexican War; he had represented his 
country as a military observer with the allies in the Crimea ; 
he was a good engineer, and a capable man of business. 
His winning personality, until he went wrong in the terrible 
days of 1862, inspired "a remarkable affection and regard 
in every one from the President to the humblest orderly 
that waited at his door."^ He was at home among books; 
he could write to his wife that Prince Napoleon "speaks 
English very much as the Frenchmen do in the old English 
comedies";^ he was able to converse in "French, Spanish, 
Italian, Gennan, in two Indian dialects, and he knew a little 
Russian and Turkish." Men like Wade and Chandler 
probably thought of him as a "highbrow," and doubtless 
he irritated them by invariably addressing the President as 
"Your Excellency." He had the impulses as well as the 
traditions of an elder day. But he had three insidious 

221 



222 LINCOLN 

defects. At the back of his mind there was a vein of 
theatricaHty, hitherto unrevealed, that might, under suffi- 
cient stimulus, transform him into a poseur. Though 
physically brave, he had in his heart, unsuspected by him- 
self or others, the dread of responsibility. He was void 
of humor. These damaging qualities, brought out and 
exaggerated by too swift a rise to apparent greatness, 
eventually worked his ruin. As an organizer he was 
unquestionably efficient. His great achievement which 
secures him a creditable place in x^merican history was the 
conversion in the autumn of 1861 of a defeated rabble and 
a multitude of raw militia into a splendid fighting machine. 
The very excellence of this achievement was part of his 
undoing. It was so near to magical that it imposed on 
himself, gave him a false estimate of himself, hid from him 
his own limitation. It imposed also on his enemies. Crude, 
fierce men like the Vindictive leaders of Congress, seeing 
this miracle take place so astoundingly soon, leaped at once 
to the conclusion that he could, if he would, follow it by 
another miracle. Having forged the thunderbolt, why 
could he not, if he chose, instantly smite and destroy? All 
these hasty inexperienced zealots labored that winter under 
the delusion that one great battle might end the war. 
When IMcClellan, instead of rushing to the front, entered 
his second phase — the one w^iich he did not understand 
himself, which his enemies never understood — when he 
entered upon his long course of procrastination, the 
Jacobins, startled, dumfounded, casting about for reasons, 
could find in their imanalytical vision, but one. When 
Jove did not strike, it must be because Jove did not wish 
to strike. McClellan was delaying for a purpose. Almost 
instantaneous was the whisper, followed quickly by the out- 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 223 

cry among the Jacobins, "Treachery! We are betrayed. 
He is in league with the enemy." 

Their distrust was not allayed by the manner in which 
he conducted himself. His views of life and of the office 
of commanding general were not those of frontier America. 
He believed in pomp, in display, in an ordered routine. 
The fine weather of the autumn of 1861 was utilized at 
Washington for frequent reviews. The flutter of flags, the 
glint of marching bayonets, the perfectly ordered rhythm 
of marching feet, the blare of trumpets, the silvery notes 
of the bugles, the stormily rolling drums, all these filled 
with martial splendor the golden autumn air when the 
woods were falling brown. And everywhere, it seemed, 
look where one might, a sumptuously uniformed Command- 
ing General, and a numerous and sumptuous staff, were 
galloping past, mounted on beautiful horses. Plain, blunt 
men like the Jacobins, caring nothing for this ritual of 
command, sneered. They exchanged stories of the elabo- 
rate dinners he was said to give daily, the several courses, 
the abundance of wine, the numerous guests ; and after these 
dinners, he and his gorgeous staff, "clattering up and down 
the public streets" merely to show themselves off. All this 
sneering was wildly exaggerated. The mania of exaggera- 
tion, the mania of suspicion, saturated the mental air 
breathed by every politician at Washington, that desperate 
winter, except the great and lonely President and the 
cynical Secretary of State. 

McClellan n:iade no concessions to the temper of the 
hour. With Lincoln, his relations at first were cordial. 
Always he was punctiliously respectful to "His Excellency." 
It is plain that at first Lincoln liked him and that his liking 
was worn away slowly. It is equally plain that Lincoln 



224 LINCOLN 

did not know how to deal with him. The tendency to pose 
was so far from anything in Lincoln's make-up that it re- 
mained for him, whether in jMcClellan or another, unin- 
telligible. That humility which was so conspicuous in this 
first period of his rule, led him to assume with his General 
a modest, even an appealing tone. The younger man began 
to ring false by failing to appreciate it. He even com- 
plained of it in a letter to his wife. The military ritualist 
would have liked a more 01}iiipian superior. And there 
is no denying that his head was getting turned. Perhaps 
he had excuse. The newspapers printed nonsensical edi- 
torials praising "the young Napoleon." His mail was 
filled with letters urging him to carry things with a high 
hand; disregard, if necessary, the pusillanimous civil gov- 
ernment, and boldly "save the country." He had so little 
humor that he could take this stuff seriously. Among all 
the foolish letters which the executors of famous men have 
permitted to see the light of publicity, few outdo a letter 
of AlcClellan's in which he confided to his wife that he was 
willing to become dictator, should that be the only way out, 
and then, after saving his country, to perish.^ 

In this lordly mood of the melodramatic, he gradually 
— probably without knowing it — ^became inattentive to the 
President. Lincoln used to go to his house to consult 
him, generally on foot, clad in very ordinary clothes. He 
was known to sit in McClellan's library "rather unnoticed" 
awaiting the General's pleasure.* 

At last the growing coolness of McClellan went so far 
that an event occurred which Hay indignantly set down 
in his diary: "I wish here to record what I consider a 
portent of evil to come. The President, Governor Seward 
and I went over to McClellan's house to-night. The 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 225 

servant at the door said the General was at the wedding 
of Colonel Wheaton at General Buell's and w^ould soon re- 
turn. We went in and after we had waited about an hour, 
McClellan came in, and without paying particular atten- 
tion to the porter who told him the President was waiting 
to see him, went up-stairs, passing the door of the room 
where tlie President and the Secretary of State were 
seated. They waited about half an hour, and sent once 
more a servant to tell the General they were there ; and the 
answer came that the General had gone to bed. 

"I merely record this unparalleled insolence of epaulettes 
without comment. It is the first indication I have yet 
seen of the threatened supremacy of the military author- 
ities. Coming home, I spoke to the President about the 
matter, but he seemed not to have noticed it specially, say- 
ing it were better at this time not to be making points of 
etiquette and personal dignity."^ 

Did ever a subordinate, even a general, administer to a 
superior a more astounding snub? To Lincoln in his 
selfless temper, it was only a detail in his problem of getting 
the army into action. What room for personal affronts 
however gross in a mood like his? To be sure he ceased 
going to McClellan's house, and thereafter summoned Mc- 
Clellan to come to him, but no change appeared in the tone 
of his intercourse with the General. *T will hold Mc- 
Clellan's horse," said he, "if he will win me victories."^ 

All this while, the two were debating plans of campaign 
and jMcClellan was revealing — as we now see, though no 
one saw it at the time — the deep dread of responsibility 
that was destined to paralyze him as an active general. He 
was never ready. Always, there must be more prepara- 
tion, more men, more this, more that. 



226 LINCOLN 

In January, 1862, Lincoln, grown desperate because of 
hope deferred, made the first move of a sort that was to 
be lamentably frequent the next six months. He went 
over the head of the Commanding General, and, in order 
to force a result, evoked a power not recognized in the 
military scheme of things. By this time the popular adula- 
tion of McClellan was giving place to a general imitation 
of the growling of the Jacobins, now well organized in the 
terrible Committee and growing each day more and more 
hostile to the Administration. Lincoln had besought Mc- 
Clellan to take into account the seriousness of this rising 
tide of opposition.^ His arguments made no impression. 
McClellan Avould not recognize the political side of war. 
At last, partly to allay the popular clamor, partly to force 
McClellan into a corner, Lincoln published to the country 
a military program. He publicly instructed the Command- 
ing General to put all his forces in movement on all fronts, 
on Washington's birthday.^ 

From this moment the debate between the President 
and the General with regard to plans of campaign ap- 
proached the nature of a dispute. McClellan repeated his 
demand for more time in which to prepare. He objected 
to the course of advance which the President wished him 
to pursue. Lincoln, seeing the situation first of all as a 
political problem, grounded his thought upon two ideas 
neither of which was shared by McClellan : the idea that 
the supreme consideration was the safety of Washington; 
the resultant idea that McClellan should move directly 
south, keeping his whole army constantl}'' between Wash- 
ington and the enemy. McClellan wished to treat Wash- 
ington as but one important detail in his strategy; he had 
a grandiose scheme for a wide flanking movement, for 



1 



I 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 22- 

taking the bulk of his army by sea to the coast of Vir- 
ginia, and thus to draw the Confederate army homeward 
for a duel to the death under the walls of Richmond. Lin- 
coln, neither then nor afterward more than an amateur in 
strategy, was deeply alarmed by this bold mode of pro- 
cedure. His political instinct told him that if there was 
any slip and \\'ashington was taken, even briefly, by the 
Confederates, the game was up. He was still further 
alarmed when he found that some of the elder generals 
held views resembling his own.^ To his modest, still 
groping mind, this was a trying situation. In the Presi- 
dent lay the ultimate responsibility for every move the army 
should make. And whose advice should he accept as 
authoritative? The first time he asked himself that ques- 
tion, such peace of mind as had sur^-ived the harassing 
year 1861 left him, not to return for many a day. 

At this moment of crises, occurred one of his keenest 
personal afflictions. His little son Willie sickened and died. 
Lincoln's relation to his children was very close, very 
tender. Many anecdotes show this boy frolicking about 
the White House, a licensed intruder everywhere. An- 
other flood of anecdotes preserve the stupefying grief of 
his father after the child's death. Of these latter, the most 
extreme which portray Lincoln toward the close of Febru- 
ary so unnen'ed as to be incapable of public duty, rnay be 
dismissed as apocr}-phal. But there can be no doubt that 
his unhappiness was too great for the vain measurement of 
descriptive words ; that it intensified the nen-ous mood which 
had already possessed him ; that anxiety, deepening at times 
into terrible alarm, became his constant companion. 

In his dread and sorrow, his dilemma grew daily more 
intolerable. r^IcClellan had opposed so stoutly the Wash- 



228 LINCOLN 

ington birthday order that Lincoln had permitted him to 
ignore it. He was still wavering which advice to take, 
McClellan's or the elder generals'. To remove McClellan, 
to try at this critical moment some other general, did not 
occur to him as a rational possibility. But somehow he 
felt he must justify himself to himself for yielding to Mc- 
Clellan's views. In his zeal to secure some judgment more 
authoritative than his own, he took a further step along 
the dangerous road of going over the Commander's head, 
of bringing to bear upon him influences not strictly in- 
cluded in the military system. He required McClellan to 
submit his plan to a council of his general officers. Lin- 
coln attended this council and told the generals "he was 
not a military man and therefore would be governed by the 
opinion of a majority."^^ The council decided in Mc- 
Clellan's favor by a vote of eight to four. This was a 
disappointment to Lincoln. So firm was his addiction to 
the overland route that he could not rest content with the 
council's decision. Stanton urged him to disregard it, 
sneering that the eight who voted against him were Mc- 
Clellan's creatures, his "pets." But Lincoln would not 
risk going against the majority of the council. "We are 
civilians," said he, "we should justly be held responsible 
for any disaster if we set up our opinions against those 
of experienced military men in the practical management 
of a campaign."^^ 

Nevertheless, from this quandary, in which his reason 
forced him to do one thing while all his sensibilities pro- 
tested, he extricated himself in a curious way. Through- 
out the late winter he had been the object of a concerted 
attack from Stanton and the Committee. The Committee 
had tacitlv annexed Stanton. He conferred with them 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 229 

confidentially. At each important turn of events, he and 
they always got together in a secret powpow. As early as 
P^bruary twentieth, when Lincoln seemed to be breaking 
down with grief and anxiety, one of those secret confer- 
ences of the high conspirators ended in a determination to 
employ all their forces, direct and indirect, to bring about 
McClellan's retirement. They were all victims of that 
mania of suspicion which was the order of the day. "A 
majority of the Committee," wrote its best member, long 
afterward when he had come to see things in a different 
light, "strongly suspected that General McClellan was a 
traitor." Wade vented his spleen in furious words about 
"King McClellan." Unrestrained by Lincoln's anguish, 
the Committee demanded a conference a few days after 
his son's death and threatened an appeal from President 
to Congress if he did not quickly force McClellan to ad- 
vance. ^^ 

All this while the Committee was airing another griev- 
ance. They clamored to have the twelve divisions of the 
army of the Potomac grouped into corps. They gave as 
their motive, military efficiency. And perhaps they 
thought they meant it. But there was a cat in the bag 
which they carefully tried to conceal. The generals of 
divisions formed two distinct groups, the elder ones who 
did not owe their elevation to McClellan and the younger 
ones who did. The elder generals, it happened, sympa- 
thized generally with the Committee in politics, or at least 
did not sympathize with McClellan. Tlie younger generals 
reflected the politics of their patron. And McClellan was 
a Democrat, a hater of the Vindictives, unsympathetic with 
Abolition. Therefore, the mania of suspicion being in full 
flood, the Committee would believe no good of McClellan 



230 LINCOLN 

when he opposed advancing the elder generals to the rank 
of corps commanders. His explanation that he "wished to 
test them in the field," was poohpoohed. Could not any- 
good Jacobin see through that ! Of course, it was but an 
excuse to hold back the plums until he could drop them 
into the itching palms of those wicked Democrats, his 
"pets." Why should not the good men and true, elder and 
therefore better soldiers, whose righteousness was so well 
attested by their political leanings, why should not they 
have the places of power to which their rank entitled them? 

Hitherto, however, Lincoln had held out against the 
Committee's demand and had refused to compel McClellan 
to reorganize his army against his will. He now observed 
that in the council which cast the die against the overland 
route, the division between the two groups of generals, 
what we may call the Lincoln generals and the McClellan 
generals, was sharply evident. The next day he issued a 
general order which organized the army of the Potomac 
into corps, and promoted to the rank of corps commanders, 
those elder generals whose point of view was similar to his 
own.^^ Thereafter, any reference of crucial matters to a 
council of general officers, would mean submitting it, not 
to a dozen commanders of divisions with McClellan men in 
the majority, but to four or five commanders of corps 
none of whom was definitely of the McClellan faction. 
Thus McClellan was virtually put under surveillance of an 
informal war council scrutinizing his course from the 
President's point of view. It was this reduced council of 
the subordinates, as will presently appear, that made the 
crucial decision of the campaign. 

On the same day Lincoln issued another general order 
accepting McClellan's plan for a flanking movement to the 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 231 

Virginia coast.^^ The Confederate lines at this time ran 
through Manassas — the point Lincoln wished McClellan to 
strike. It was to be known later that the Confederate Gen- 
eral gave to Lincoln's views the high endorsement of as- 
suming that they were the inevitable views that the North- 
ern Commander, -if he knew his business, would act upon. 
Therefore, he had been quietly preparing to withdraw his 
army to more defensible positions farther South. By a 
curious coincidence, his "strategic retreat" occurred im- 
mediately after McClellan had been given authority to do 
what he liked. On the ninth of March it was known at 
Washington that Manassas had been evacuated. Where- 
upon, McClellan's fatal lack of humor permitted him to 
make a great blunder. The man who had refused to go 
to Manassas while the Confederates were there, marched 
an army to Manassas the moment he heard that they were 
gone — and then marched back again. This performance 
was instantly fixed upon for ridicule as McClellan's "prom- 
enade to Manassas." 

To Lincoln the news of the promenade seemed both a 
vindication of his own plan and crushing evidence that if 
he had insisted on his plan, the Confederate army would 
have been annihilated, the w^ar in one cataclysm brought to 
an end. He was ridden, as most men were, by the delusion 
of one terrific battle that was to end all. In a bitterness 
of disappointment, his slowly tortured spirit burst into 
rage. The Committee was delighted. For once, they ap- 
proved of him. The next act of this man, ordinarily so 
gentle, seems hardly credible. By a stroke of his pen, he 
stripped McClellan of the office of Commanding General, 
reduced him to the rank of mere head of a local army, the 
army of the Potomac; furthermore, he permitted him to 



232 LINCOLN 

hear of his degradation through the heartless medium of the 
daily papers. ^^ The functions of Commanding General 
were added to the duties of the Secretary of War. Stan- 
ton, now utterly merciless toward McClellan, instantly took 
possession of his office and seized his papers, for all the 
world as if he were pouncing upon the effects of a male- 
factor. That AlcClellan was not yet wholly spoiled was 
shown by the w*ay he received this blow. It was the Mc- 
Clellan of the old days, the gallant gentleman of the year 
i860, not the poseur of 1861, who wrote at once to Lin- 
coln making no complaint, saying that his services belonged 
to his country in whatever capacity they might be required. 

Again a council of subordinates was invoked to deter- 
mine the next move. McClellan called together the newly 
made corps commanders and obtained their approval of a 
variation of his former plan. He now proposed to use 
Fortress Monroe as a base, and thence conduct an attack 
upon Richmond. Again, though with a touch of sullenness 
very rare in Lincoln, the President acquiesced. But he added 
a condition to McClellan's plan by issuing positive orders, 
March thirteenth, that it should not be carried out unless 
sufficient force was left at Washington to render the city 
impregnable. 

During the next few days the Committee must have 
been quite satisfied with the President. For him, he was 
savage. The normal Lincoln, the man of immeasurable 
mercy, had temporarily vanished. McClellan's blunder 
had touched the one spring that roused the tiger in Lincoln. 
By letting slip a chance to terminate the war — as it seemed 
to that deluded Washington of March, 1862, — McClellan 
had converted Lincoln from a brooding gentleness to an 
incarnation of the last judgment. He told Hay he thought 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 233 

that in permitting jMcClellan to retain any command, he 
had shown him "very great kindness."^® Apparently, he 
had no consciousness that he had been harsh in the mode 
of AlcClellan's abatement, no thought of the fine nianhness 
of McClellan's reply. 

During this period of Lincoln's brief vengefulness, 
Stanton thought that his time for clearing scores with Mc- 
Clellan had come. He even picked out the man who was 
to be rushed over other men's heads to the command of 
the army of the Potomac. General Hitchcock, an accom- 
plished soldier of the regular army, a grandson of Ethan 
Allen, who had grown old in honorable service, was sum- 
moned to Washington, and was "amazed" by having 
plumped at him the question, would he consent to succeed 
McClellan? Though General Hitchcock was not without 
faults — and there is an episode in his later relations with 
McClellan which his biographer discreetly omits — he was 
a modest man. He refused to consider Stanton's offer. 
But he consented to become the confidential adviser of the 
War Office. This was done after an interview with Lin- 
coln who impressed on Hitchcock his sense of a great re- 
sponsibility and of the fact that he "had no military knowl- 
edge" and that he must have advice.^'^ Out of this con- 
gested sense of helplessness in Lincoln, joined with the 
new labors of the Secretary of War as executive head of 
all the armies, grew quickly another of those ill-omened, 
extra-constitutional war councils, one more wheel within 
the wheels, that were all doing their part to make the whole 
machine unworkable; distributing instead of concentrating 
power. This new council which came to be known as the 
Army Board, was made up of the heads of the Bureaus of 
the War Department with the addition of Hitchcock as 



234 LINCOLN 

"Advising General." Of the temper of the Army Board, 
composed as it was entirely of the satellites of Stanton, a 
confession in Hitchcock's diary speaks volumes. On the 
evening of the first day of their new relation, Stanton 
poured out to him such a quantity of oral evidence of 
McClellan's "incompetency" as to make this new recruit 
for anti-McClellanism "feel positively sick/'^^ 

By permitting this added source of confusion among 
his advisers, Lincoln treated himself much as he had al- 
ready treated McClellan. By going over McClellan's head 
to take advice from his subordinates he had put the General 
on a leash; now, by setting Hitchcock and the experts in 
the seat of judgment, he virtually, for a short while, put 
himself on a leash. Thus had come into tacit but real 
power three military councils none of which was recog- 
nized as such by law — the Council of the Subordinates be- 
hind McClellan; the Council of the Experts behind Lin- 
coln; the Council of the Jacobins, called The Committee, 
behind them all. 

The political pressure on Lincoln now changed its tack. 
Its unfailing zeal to discredit McClellan assumed the form 
of insisting that he had a secret purpose in waiting to get 
his army away from Washington, that he was scheming to 
leave the city open to the Confederates, to "uncover" it, as 
the soldiers said. By way of focussing the matter on a 
definite issue, his enemies demanded that he detach from 
his army and assign to the defense of Washington, a divi- 
sion which was supposed to be peculiarly efficient. Gen- 
eral Blenker had recruited a sort of "foreign legion," in 
which were many daring adventurers who had seen service 
in European armies. Blenker's was the division de- 
manded. So determined was the pressure that Lincoln 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 235 

yielded. However, his brief anger had blown itself out. 
To continue vengeful any length of time was for Lincoln 
impossible. He was again the normal Lincoln, passion- 
less, tender, fearful of doing an injustice, weighed down by 
the sense of responsibility. He broke the news about 
Blenker in a personal note to McClellan that was almost 
apologetic. "I write this to assure you that I did so with 
great pain, understanding that you would wish it other- 
wise. If you could know the full pressure of the case, I 
am confident you w^ould justify it. . . ."^^ In con- 
versation, he assured McClellan that no other portion of 
his army should be taken from him.^^ 

The change in Lincoln's mood exasperated Stanton. 
He called on his pals in the Committee for another of those 
secret confabulations in which both he and they delighted. 
Speaking with scorn of Lincoln's return to magnanimity, 
he told them that the President had "gone back to his first 
love," the traitor McClellan. Probably all those men who 
wagged their chins in that conference really believed that 
McClellan was aiming to betray them. One indeed, Julian, 
long afterward had the largeness of mind to confess his 
fault and recant. The rest died in their absurd delusion, 
maniacs of suspicion to the very end. At the time all of 
them laid their heads together — for what purpose? Was 
it to catch McClellan in a trap? 

Meanwhile, in obedience to Lincoln's orders of March 
thirteenth, McClellan drew up a plan for the defense of 
Washington. As Hitchcock was now in such high feather, 
McClellan sent his plan to the new favorite of the War 
Office, for criticism. Hitchcock refused to criticize, and 
when McClellan's chief of staff pressed for "his opinion, as 
an old and experienced officer," Hitchcock repilied that 



236 LINCOLN 

McClellan had had ample opportunity to know what was 
needed, and persisted in his refusal. ^^ McClellan asked no 
further advice and made his arrangements to suit himself. 
On April first he took boat at Alexandria for the front. 
Part of his army had preceded him. The remainder — ex- 
cept the force he had assigned to the defense of Washing- 
ton — was speedily to follow. 

With McClellan's departure still another devotee of 
suspicion moves to the front of the stage. This was Gen- 
eral Wadsworth. Early in March, Stanton had told Mc- 
Clellan that he wanted Wadsworth as commander of the 
defenses of Washington. McClellan had protested. Wads- 
worth was not a military man. He was a politician turned 
soldier who had tried to be senator from New York and 
failed; tried to be governor and failed; and was destined 
to try again to be governor, and again to fail. Why should 
such a person be singled out to become responsible for the 
safety of the capital? Stanton's only argument was that 
the appointment of Wadsworth was desirable for political 
reasons. He added that it would be made whether Mc- 
Clellan liked it or not. And made it was.^^ Further- 
more, Wadsworth, who had previously professed friend- 
ship for McClellan, promptly joined the ranks of his 
enemies. Can any one doubt, Stanton being Stanton, mad 
with distrust of McClellan, that Wadsworth was fully in- 
formed of McClellan's opposition to his advancement ? 

On the second of April Wadsworth threw a bomb after 
the vanishing McClellan, then aboard his steamer some- 
where between Washington and Fortress Monroe. Wads- 
worth informed Stanton that McClellan had not carried 
out the orders of March thirteenth, that the force he had 
left at Washington was inadequate to its safety, that the 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 237 

capital was "uncovered." Here was a chance for Stanton 
to bring to bear on Lincoln both those unofficial councils 
that were meddling so deeply in the control of the army. 
He threw this firebrand of a report among his satellites of 
the Army Board and into the midst of the Committee. ^^ 

It is needless here to go into the furious disputes that 
ensued — the accusations, the recriminations, the innuen- 
does! McClellan stoutly insisted that he had obeyed both 
the spirit and the letter of March thirteenth; that Wash- 
ington was amply protected. His enemies shrieked that 
his statements were based on juggled figures; that even if 
the number of soldiers was adequate, the quality and equip' 
ment were wretched ; in a word that he lied. It is a shame- 
less controversy inconceivable were there not many men in 
whom politics and prejudice far outweighed patriotism. 
In all this, Hitchcock was Stanton's trump card. He who 
had refused to advise McClellan, did not hesitate to de- 
nounce him. In response to a request from Stanton, he 
made a report sustaining Wadsworth. The Committee 
summoned Wadsworth before it; he read them his report 
to Stanton; reiterated its charges, and treated them to 
some innuendoes after their own hearts, plainly hinting 
that McClellan could have crushed the Confederates at 
Manassas if he had wished to.^* 

A wave of hysteria swept the Committee and the War 
Office and beat fiercely upon Lincoln. The Board charged 
him to save the day by mulcting the army of the Potomac 
of an entire corps, retaining it at Washington. Lincoln 
met the Board in a long and troubled conference. His 
anxious desire to do all he could for McClellan was pal- 
pable.'^ But what, under the circumstances, could he do? 

Here was this new device for the steadying of his judg- 



238 LINCOLN 

ment, this Council of Experts, singing the same old tune, 
assuring him that McClellan was not to be trusted. Al- 
though in the reaction from his momentary vengefulness 
he had undoubtedly swung far back toward recovering 
confidence in McClellan, did he dare — painfully conscious 
as he was that he "had no military knowledge" — did he 
dare go against the Board, disregard its warning that Mc- 
Clellan's arrangements made of Washington a dangling 
plum for Confederate raiders to snatch whenever they 
pleased. His bewilderment as to what McClellan was 
really driving at came back upon him in full force. He 
reached at last the dreary conclusion that there was noth- 
ing for it but to let the new wheel within the wheels take 
its turn at running the machine. Accepting the view that 
McClellan had not kept faith on the basis of the orders of 
March thirteenth, Lincoln "after much consideration" set 
aside his own promise to McClellan and authorized the 
Secretary of War to detain a full corps.^^ 

McClellan never forgave this mutilation of his army 
and in time fixed upon it as the prime cause of his eventual 
failure on the Peninsula. It is doubtful whether relations 
between him and Lincoln were ever again really cordial. 

In their rather full correspondence during the tense 
days of April, May and June, the steady deterioration of 
McClellan's judgment bore him down into amazing 
depths of fatuousness. In his own way he was as much 
appalled by the growth of his responsibility as ever Lincoln 
had been. He moved with incredible caution.* 

His despatches were a continual wailing for more men. 



♦Commenting on one of his moments of hesitation, J. E. Johnston 
wrote to Lee: "No one but McClellan could have hesitated to 
attack." 14 O. R., 456. 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 239 

Whatever went wrong- was at once blamed on Washington. 
His ill-usage had made him bitter. And he could not 
escape the fact that his actual performance did not come 
up to expectation; that he was constantly out-generaled. 
His prevailing temper during these days is shown in a 
letter to his wiie. "I have raised an awful row about 
McDowell's corps. The President very coolly telegraphed 
me yesterday that he thought I ought to break the enemy's 
lines at once. I was much tempted to reply that he had 
better come and do it himself." A despatch to Stanton, in 
a moment of disaster, has become notorious: "If I save 
this army now, I tell you plainly I owe no thanks to you or 
to any other persons in Washington. You have done your 
best to sacrifice this army."^'^ 

Throughout this preposterous correspondence, Lincoln 
maintained the even tenor of his usual patient stoicism, 
"his sad lucidity of soul." He explained ; he reasoned ; he 
promised, over and over, assistance to the limit of his 
power; he never scolded; when complaint became too 
absurd to be reasoned with, he passed it over in silence. 
Again, he was the selfless man, his sensibilities lost in the 
purpose he sought to establish. 

Once during this period, he acted — suddenly, on the spur 
of the moment, in a swift upflaring of his unconquerable 
fear for the safety of Washington. Previously, he had 
consented to push the detained corps, McDowell's, south- 
ward by land to cooperate with McClellan, who adapted 
his plans to this arrangement. Scarcely had he done so, 
than Lincoln threw his plans into confusion by ordering 
McDowell back to Washington.-^ Jackson, who had begun 
his famous campaign of menace, was sweeping like a whirl- 
wind down the Shenandoah Valley, and in the eyes of 



240 LINCOLN 

panic-struck Washington appeared to be a reincarnation of 
Southey's Napoleon, — 

"And the great Few-Faw-Fum, would presently come, 
With a hop, skip and jump" — 

into Pennsylvania Avenue. As Jackson's object was to 
bring McDowell back to Washington and enable Johnston 
to deal with McClellan unreinforced, Lincoln had fallen 
into a trap. But he had much company. Stanton was 
well-nigh out of his head. Though Jackson's army was 
less than fifteen thousand and the Union forces in front of 
him upward of sixty thousand, Stanton telegraphed to 
Northern governors imploring them to hasten forward 
militia because "the enemy in great force are marching on 
Washington."29 

The moment Jackson had accomplished his purpose, 
having drawn a great army northwestward away from 
McClellan, most of which should have been marching 
southeastward to join McClellan, he slipped away, rushed 
his own army across the whole width of Virginia, and 
joined Lee in the terrible fighting of the Seven Days before 
Richmond. 

- In the midst of this furious confusion, the men sur- 
rounding Lincoln may be excused for not observing a 
change in him. They have recorded his appearance of 
indecision, his solicitude over McClellan, his worn and 
haggard look. The changing light in those smoldering 
fires of his deeply sunken eyes escaped their notice. Gradu- 
ally, through profound unhappiness, and as always in 
silence, Lincoln was working out of his last eclipse. No 
certain record of his inner life during this transition, the 
most important of his life, has survived. We can judge 



STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY 241 

of it only by the results. The outstanding fact with re- 
gard to it is a certain change of attitude, an access of 
determination, late in June. What desperate wrestling 
with the angel had taken place in the months of agony 
since his son's death, even his private secretaries have not 
felt able to say. Neither, apparently, did they perceive, 
until it flashed upon them full-blown, the change that was 
coming over his resolution. Nor did the Cabinet have any 
warning that the President was turning a corner, develop- 
ing a new phase of himself, something sterner, more 
powerful than anything they had suspected. This was 
ever his way. His instinctive reticence stood firm until 
the moment of the new birth. Not only the Cabinet but 
the country was amazed and startled, wdien, late in June, 
the President suddenly left Washington. He made a fly- 
ing trip to West Point where Scott was living in virtual re- 
tirement.^*^ What passed between the two, those few hours 
they spent together, that twenty-fourth of June, 1862, has 
never been divulged. Did they have any eyes, that day, for 
the w^onderful prospect from the high terrace of the parade 
ground; for the river so far below, flooring the valley 
with silver; for the mountains pearl and blue? Did they 
talk of Stanton, of his waywardness, his furies? Of the 
terrible Committee? Of the way Lincoln had tied his o\yn 
hands, brought his will to stalemate, through his recogni- 
tion of the unofificial councils? Who knows? 

Lincoln was back in Washington the next day. An- 
other day, and by a sweeping order he created a new army 
for the protection of Washington, and placed in command 
of it, a western general who was credited with a brilliant 
stroke on the Mississippi.^^ 

No one will now defend the military genius of John 



242 LINCOLN 

Pope. But when Lincoln sent for him, all the evidence 
to date appeared to be in his favor. His follies were yet 
to appear. And it is more than likely that in the development 
of Lincoln's character, his appointment has a deep signiti- 
cance. It appears to mark the moment when Lincoln broke 
out of the cocoon of advisement he had spun unin- 
tentionally around his will. In the sorrows of the grim 
year, new forces had been generated. New spiritual 
powers were coming to his assistance. At last, relatively, 
he had found peace. Worn and torn as he was, after his 
long inv/ard struggle, few bore so calmly as he did the 
distracting news from the front in the closing days of Time 
and the opening days of July, when Lee was driving his 
whole strength like a superhuman battering-ram, straight 
at the heart of the wavering McClellan. A visitor at the 
White House, in the midst of the terrible strain of the 
Seven Days, found Lincoln "thin and haggard, but cheer- 
ful .. . quite as placid as usual ... his manner 
was so kindly and so free from the ordinary cocksureness 
of the politician, and the vanity and self-importance of 
official position that nothing but good will was inspired by 
his presence. "^- 

His serenity was all the more remarkable as his rela- 
tions with Congress and the Committee were fast approach- 
ing a crisis. If McClellan failed — and by the showing of 
his own despatches, there was every reason to expect him 
to fail, so besotted was he upon the idea that no one could 
prevail with the force allowed him — the Committee who 
were leaders of the congressional party against the presi- 
dential partv- might be expected promptly to measure 
strength with the Administration. 

And ^McClellan failed. At that moment Chandler, with 



I 



1 



STRUGGLE TO COXTROL THE ARMY 243 

the consent of the Committee, was making- use of its records 
preparing a Philippic against the government. Lincoln, 
acting on his owti initiative, without asking the Secretary 
of ^^"a^ to accompany him, went immediately to the front 
He passed two days questioning McClellan and his gen- 
erals. ^^ But there was no council of war. It was a differ- 
ent Lincoln from that otlier who, just four months pre- 
vious, had called together the general officers and promised 
them to abide by their decisions. He returned to Wash- 
ington without telling them what he meant to do. 

The next day closed a chapter and opened a chapter in 
the histon.- of the Federal army. Stanton's brief and in- 
glorious career as head of the national forces came to an 
end. He fell back into his rightful position, the Presi- 
dent's executive officer in militan.- affairs. Lincoln tele- 
graphed another Western general. Halleck. ordering him 
to Washington as General-in-Giief.^* He tlien, for a sea- 
son, turned his whole attention from the anny to politics. 
Five days after the telegram to Halleck, Chandler in the 
Senate, loosed his insatiable temper in what ostensibly was 
a denunciation of McOellan. what in point of fact was a 
sweeping arraignment of the militar}' efficiency of the gov- 
ernment.^^ 



XXII 



LINCOLN EMERGES 



While Lincoln was slowly struggling out of his last 
eclipse, giving most of his attention to the army, the Con- 
gressional Cabal was laboring assiduously to force the issue 
upon slavery. The keen politicians who composed it saw 
with unerring vision where, for the moment, lay their 
opportunity. They could not beat the President on any 
one issue then before the country. No one faction was 
strong enough to be their stand-by. Only by a combination 
of issues and a coalition of factions could they build up 
an anti-Lincoln party, check-mate the Administration, and 
get control of the government. They were greatly assisted 
by the fatuousness of the Democrats. That party was in 
a peculiar situation. Its most positive characters, naturally, 
had taken sides for or against the government. The 
powerful Southerners who had been its chief leaders were 
mainly in the Confederacy. Such Northerners as Douglas 
and Stanton, and many more, had gone over to the Re- 
publicans. Suddenly the control of the party organiza- 
tion had fallen into the hands of second-rate men. As by 
the stroke of an enchanter's wand, men of small caliber 
who, had the old conditions remained, would have lived 
and died of little consequence saw opening before them 
the role of leadership. It was too much for their mental 
poise. Again the subjective element in politics! The 
Democratic party for the duration of the war became the 

244 



LINCOLN EMERGES 245 

organization of Little Men. Had they possessed any great 
leaders, could they have refused to play politics and re- 
sponded to Lincoln's all-parties policy, history might have 
been different. But they were not that sort. Neither did 
they have the courage to go to the other extreme and be- 
come a resolute opposition party, whole-heartedly and in- 
telligently against the war. They equivocated, they ob- 
structed, they professed loyalty and they practised — it 
would be hard to say what! So short-sighted was their 
political game that its effect continually was to play into 
the hands of their most relentless enemies, the grim 
Jacobins. 

Though, for a brief time while the enthusiasm after 
Sumter was still at its height they appeared to go along 
with the all-parties program, they soon revealed their true 
course. In the autumn of 1861, Lincoln still had sufficient 
hold upon all factions to make it seem likely that his all- 
parties program would be given a chance. The Repub- 
licans generally made overtures to the Democratic managers, 
offering to combine in a coalition party with no plat- 
form but the support of the war and the restoration of 
the Union. Here was the test of the organization of the 
Little Men. The insignificant new managers, intoxicated 
by the suddenness of their opportunity, rang false. They 
rejected the all-parties program and insisted on maintain- 
ing their separate party formation.^ This was a turning 
point in Lincoln's career. Though nearly two years were 
to pass before he admitted his defeat, the all-parties pro- 
gram was doomed from that hour. Throughout the winter, 
the Democrats in Congress, though steadily ambiguous in 
their statements of principle, were as steadily hostile to 
Lincoln. If they had any settled policy, it was no more 



246 LINCOLN 

than an attempt to hold the balance of power among the 
warring factions of the Republicans. By springtime the 
game they were playing was obvious ; also its results. They 
had prevented the President from building up a strong 
Administration group wherewith he might have counter- 
balanced the Jacobins. Thus they had released the 
Jacobins from the one possible restraint that might have 
kept them from pursuing their own devices. 

The spring of 1862 saw a general realignment of 
factions. It was then that the Congressional Cabal won 
its first significant triumph. Hitherto, all the Republican 
platforms had been programs of denial. A brilliant new 
member of the Senate, John Sherman, bluntly told his col- 
leagues that the Republican party had always stood on the 
defensive. That was its weakness. "I do not know any 
measure on which it has taken an aggressive position."- 
The clue to the psychology of the moment was in the raging 
demand of the masses for a program of assertion, for 
aggressive measures. The President was trying to meet 
this demand with his all-parties program, with his policy 
of nationalism, exclusive of everything else. And re- 
cently he had added that other assertion, his insistence that 
the executive in certain respects was independent of the 
legislative. Of his three assertions, one, the all-parties 
program, was already on the way to defeat. Another, 
nationalism, as the President interpreted it, had alienated 
the Abolitionists. The third, his argument for himself as 
tribune, was just what your crafty politician might twist, 
pervert, load with false meanings to his heart's content. 
Men less astute than Chandler and Wade could not have 
failed to see where fortune pointed. Their opportunity 
lay in a combination of the two issues. Abohtion and the re- 



LINCOLN EMERGES 247 

sistance to executive "usurpation." Their problem was to 
create an anti-Lincoln party that should also be a war party. 
Their coalition of aggressive forces must accept the Abo- 
litionists as its backbone, but it must also include all 
violent elements of whatever persuasion, and especially all 
those that could be wrought into fury on the theme of the 
President as a despot. Above all, their coalition must 
absorb and then express the furious temper so dear to 
their own hearts which they fondly believed — mistakenly, 
they were destined to discover — was the temper of the 
country. 

It can not be said that this was the Republican pro- 
gram. The President's program, fully as positive as that 
of the Cabal, had as good a right to appropriate the party 
label — as events were to show, a better right. But the 
power of the Cabal was very great, and the following it 
was able to command in the country reached almost the 
proportions of the terrible. A factional name is needed. 
For the Jacobins, their allies in Congress, their followers 
in the country, from the time they acquired a positive 
program, an accurate label is the Vindictives. 

During the remainder of the session, Congress may be 
thought of as having — what Congress seldom has — three 
definite groups. Right, Left and Center. The Right was 
the Vindictives ; the Left, the irreconcilable Democrats ; the 
Center was composed chiefly of liberal Republicans but 
included a few Democrats, those who rebelled against the 
political chicanery of the Little Men. 

The policy of the Vindictives was to force upon the 
Administration the double issue of emancipation and the 
supremacy of Congress. Therefore, their aim was to pass 
a bill freeing the slaves on the sole authority of a con- 



248 LINCOLN 

gressional fiat. Many resolutions, many bills, all having 
this end in view, were introduced. Some were buried in 
committees ; some were remade in committees and sub- 
jected to long debate by the Houses ; now and then one was 
passed upon. But the spring wore through and the sum- 
mer came, and still the Vindictives were not certainly in 
control of Congress, No bill to free slaves by congres- 
sional action secured a majority vote. At the same time it 
was plain that the strength of the Vindictives was slowly, 
steadily, growing. 

Outside Congress, the Abolitionists took new hope. 
They had organized a systematic propaganda. At Wash- 
ington, weekly meetings were held in the Smithsonian 
Institute, where all their most conspicuous leaders, Phillips, 
Emerson, Brownson, Garret Smith, made addresses. 
Every Sunday a service was held in the chamber of the 
House of Representatives and the sermon was almost 
always a "terrific arraignment of slavery," Their watch- 
word was "A Free Union or Disintegration," The treat- 
ment of fugitive slaves by commanders in the field pro- 
duced a clamor, Lincoln insisted on strict obedience to 
the two laws, the Fugitive Slave Act and the First Confis- 
cation Act. Abolitionists sneered at "all this gabble about 
the sacredness of the Constitution,"^ But Lincoln was not 
to be moved. When General Hunter, taking a leaf from 
the book of Fremont, tried to force his hand, he did not 
hesitate. Hunter had issued a proclamation by which the 
slaves in the region where he commanded were "declared 
forever free," 

This was in May when Lincoln's difficulties with Mc- 
Clellan were at their height; when the Committee was 
zealously watching to catch him in any sort of mistake; 



LINCOLN EMERGES 249 

when the House was within four votes of a majority for 
emancipation by act of Congress;* when there was no cer- 
tainty whether the country was with him or with the Vin- 
dictives. Perhaps that new courage which definitely re- 
vealed itself the next month, may be first glimpsed in the 
proclamation overruling Hunter: 

"I further malce known that whether it be competent 
for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, 
to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and 
w^hether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a 
necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the govern- 
ment to exercise such supposed power, are questions 
which, under my reponsibility, I reserve to myself, and 
which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decision of 
commanders in the field.""'' 

The revocation of Hunter's order infuriated the Abo- 
litionists. It deeply disappointed the growing number who, 
careless about slavery, wanted emancipation as a war meas- 
ure, as a blow at the South. Few of either of these groups 
noticed the implied hint that emancipation might come by 
executive action. Here was the matter of the war powers 
in a surprising form. However, it was not unknown to 
Congress. Attempts had been made to induce Congress 
to concede the war powers to the President and to ask, not 
command, him to use them for the liberation of slaves in 
the Seceded States. Long before, in a strangely different 
connection, such vehement Abolitionists as Giddings and 
J. Q. Adams had pictured the freeing of slaves as a 
natural incident of military occupation. 

What induced Lincoln to throw out this hint of a pos- 
sible surrender on the subject of emancipation? Again, 
as so often, the silence as to his motives is unbroken. How- 



250 LINCOLN 

ever, there can be no doubt that his thinking on the subject 
passed through several successive stages. But all his 
thinking was ruled by one idea. Any policy he might ac- 
cept, or any refusal of policy, would be judged in his own 
mind by the degree to which it helped, or hindered, the 
national cause. Nothing was more absurd than the sneer 
of the Abolitionists that he was "tender" of slavery. 
Browning spoke for him faithfully, "If slavery can sur- 
vive the shock of war and secession, be it so. If in the 
conflict for liberty, the Constitution and the Union, it must 
necessarily perish, then let it perish." Browning refused 
to predict which alternative would develop. His point was 
that slaves must be treated like other property. But, if 
need be, he would sacrifice slavery as he would sacrifice 
anything else, to save the Union. He had no intention to 
"protect" slavery.*^ 

In the first stage of Lincoln's thinking on this thorny 
subject, his chief anxiety was to avoid scaring off from 
the national cause those Southern Unionists who were not 
prepared to abandon slavery. This was the motive behind 
his prompt suppression of Fremont. It was this that in- 
spired the Abolitionist sneer about his relative attitude 
toward God and Kentucky. As a compromise, to cut the 
ground from under the Vindictives, he had urged the loyal 
Slave States to endorse a program of compensated emanci- 
pation. But these States were as unable to see the hand- 
writing on the wall as were the Little Men. In the same 
proclamation that overruled Hunter, while hinting at what 
the Administration might feel driven to do, Lincoln ap- 
pealed again to the loyal Slave States to accept compensated 
emancipation. 

"I do not argue," said he, "I beseech you to make the 



LINCOLN EMERGES 251 

argument for yourselves. You can not, if you would, be 
blind to the signs of the times. . . . This proposal 
makes common cause for a common object, casting no re- 
proaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change 
it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, 
not rending or wrecking anything."^ 

Though Lincoln, at this moment, was anxiously watch- 
ing the movement in Congress to force his hand, he was 
not apparently cast down. He was emerging from his 
eclipse. June was approaching and with it the final dawn. 
Furthermore, when he issued this proclamation on May 
nineteenth, he had not lost faith in McClellan. He was 
still hoping for news of a crushing victory; of IMcClellan's 
triumphal entry into Richmond. The next two months 
embraced both those transformations which together 
revolutionized his position. He emerged from his last 
eclipse; and McClellan failed him. 

When Lincoln returned to Washington after his two 
days at the front, he knew that the fortunes of his Adminis- 
tration were at a low ebb. Never had he been derided in 
Congress with more brazen injustice. The Committee, 
waiting only for McClellan's failure, would now unmask 
their guns — as Chandler did, seven days later. The line of 
Vindictive criticism could easily be foreshadowed : the 
government had failed; it was responsible for a colossal 
military catastrophe; but what could you expect of an Ad- 
ministration that would not strike its enemies through 
emancipation; what a shattering demonstration that the 
Executive was not a safe repository of the war powers. 

Was there any way to forestall or disarm the Vin- 
dictives? His silence gives us no clue when or how the 
answer occurred to him — by separating the two issues; by 



252 



LINCOLN 



carr}' ing out the hint in the May proclamation ; by yielding 
on emancipation while, in the very act, pushing the war 
powers of the President to their limit, declaring slaves free 
by an executive order. 

The importance of preserving the war power of the 
President had become a fixed condition of Lincoln's thought. 
Already, he w^as looking forward not only to victory but 
to the great task that should come after victory. He was 
determined, if it were humanly possible, to keep that task 
in the hands of the President, and out of the hands of Con- 
gress. A first step had already been taken. In portions 
of occupied territory, military' governors had been ap- 
pointed. Simple as this seemed to the careless observer, 
it focussed the whole issue. The powerful, legal mind of 
Sumner at once perceived its significance. He denied in 
the Senate the right of the President to make such appoint- 
ments; he besought the Senate to demand the cancellation 
of such appointments. He reasserted the absolute sover- 
eignty of Congress.^ It would be a far-reaching stroke if 
Lincoln, in any way, could extort from Congress acquies- 
cence in his use of the war powers on a vast scale. Free- 
ing the slaves by executive order would be such a use. 

Another train of thought also pointed to the same re- 
sult Lincoln's desire to further the cause of "the Liberal 
party throughout the world." that desire which dated back 
to his early life as a politician, had suffered a disappoint- 
ment. Europeans Liberals, whose political vision was less 
analytical than his, had failed to understand his policy. 
The Confederate authorities had been quick to publish in 
Europe his official pronouncements that the war had been 
undertaken not to abolish slavery but to preserve the 
Union. As far back as September, 1861, Carl Schurz 



LINCOLN EMERGES 253 

wrote from Spain to Seward that the Liberals abroad were 
disappointed, that "the impression gained ground that the 
war as waged by the Federal government, far from being a 
war of principle, was merely a war of policy," and "that 
from this point of view much might be said for the South. "^ 
In fact, these hasty Europeans had found a definite ground 
for complaining that the American war was a reactionary 
influence. The concentration of American cruisers in the 
Southern blockade gave the African slave trade its last lease 
of life. \\'^ith no American war-ship among the West Indies, 
the American flag became the safeguard of the slaver. 
Englishmen complained that "the swift ships crammed with 
their human cargoes" had only to "hoist the Stars and 
Stripes and pass under the bows of our cruisers."^" 
Though Seward scored a point by his treat}'' giving British 
cruisers the right to search any ships carrying the American 
flag, the distrust of the foreign Liberals was not removed. 
They inclined to stand aside and to allow the commercial 
classes of France and England to dictate policy toward the 
United States. The blockade, by shutting off the European 
supply of raw cotton, on both sides the channel, was the 
cause of measureless unemployment, of intolerable misery. 
There was talk in both countries of intervention. Napoleon, 
especially, loomed large on the horizon as a possible ally 
of the Confederacy. And yet, all this while, Lincoln had 
it in his power at any minute to lay the specter of foreign 
intervention. A pledge to the "Liberal party throughout 
the world" that the war would bring about the destruction 
of slavery, and great political powers both in England and 
in France would at once cross the paths of their govern- 
ments should they move toward intervention. 

Weighty as were all these reasons for a change of 



254 LINCOLN 

policy — turning the flank of the Vindictives on the war 
powers, committing the AboHtionists to the Administra- 
tion, winning over the European Liberals — there was a 
fourth reason which, very probably, weighed upon Lincoln 
most powerfully of them all. Profound gloom had settled 
upon the country. There was no enthusiasm for military 
service. And Stanton, who lacked entirely the psychologic 
vision of the statesman, had recently committed an astound- 
ing blunder. After a few months in power he had con- 
cluded that the government had enough soldiers and had 
closed the recruiting offices.^^ Why Lincoln permitted 
this singular proceeding has never been satisfactorily ex- 
plained.* Now he was reaping the fruits. A defeated 
army, a hopeless country, and no prospect of swift rein- 
forcement! If a shift of ground on the question of emanci- 
pation would arouse new enthusiasm, bring in a new stream 
of recruits, Lincoln was prepared to shift. 

But even in this dire extremity, he would not give way 
without a last attempt to save his earlier policy. On July 
twelfth, he called together the Senators and Representatives 
of the Border States. He read to them a written argu- 
ment in favor of compensated emancipation, the Federal 
government to assist the States in providing funds for the 
purpose. 

"Let the States that are in rebellion," said he, "see defi- 
nitely and certainly that in no event will the States you 
represent ever join their proposed confederacy, and they 



*Stanton's motive was probably economy. Congress was terrified 
by the expense of the war. The Committee was deeply alarmed over 
the political effect of war taxation. They and Stanton were all con- 
vinced that McCIellan was amply strong enough to crush the Con- 
federacy. 



LINCOLN EMERGES 255 

can not much longer maintain the contest. But you can 
not divest them of their hope to ukimately have you with 
them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate 
the institution within your own States. . . . If the war 
continues long, as it must if the object be not sooner at- 
tained, the institution in your States will be extinguished 
by mere friction and abrasion — by the mere incidents of 
war. . . . Our common country is in great peril, de- 
manding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring it 
speedy relief. Once relieved its form of government is 
saved to the w^orld, its beloved history and cherished 
memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured 
and rendered inconceivably grand."^- 

lie made no impression. They w^ould commit them- 
selves to nothing. Lincoln abandoned his earlier policy. 

Of what happened next, he said later, "It had got to 
be. . . . Things had gone on from bad to worse until 
I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan 
of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about 
played our last card and must change our tactics or lose 
the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the 
emancipation policy. . . ."^^ 

The next day he confided his decision and his reasons 
to Seward and Welles. Though "this was a new departure 
for the President," both these Ministers agreed with him 
that the change of policy had become inevitable.^^ 

IJncoln was now entirely himself, astute in action as 
well as bold in thought. He w'ould not disclose his change 
of policy while Congress was in session. Should he do 
so, there was no telling what attempt the Cabal would make 
to prevent his intention, to twist his course into the sem- 
blance of an acceptance of the congressional theory. He 



256 LINCOLN 

laid the matter aside until Congress should be temporarily 
out of the way, until the long recess between July and De- 
cember should have begun. In this closing moment of 
the second session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, which 
is also the opening moment of the great period- of Lincoln, 
the feeling against him in Congress was extravagantly 
bitter. It caught at anything with which to make a point. 
A disregard of technicalities of procedure was magnified 
into a serious breach of constitutional privilege. Reviving 
the question of compensated emancipation, Lincoln had sent 
a special message to both Houses, submitting the text of a 
compensation bill which he urged them to consider. His 
enemies raised an uproar. The President had no right to 
introduce a bill into Congress ! Dictator Lincoln was try- 
ing in a new way to put Congress under his thumb. ^^ 

In the last week of the session, Lincoln's new boldness 
brought the old relation between himself and Congress to 
a dramatic close. The Second Confiscation Bill had long 
been under discussion. Lincoln believed that some of its 
provisions were inconsistent with the spirit at least of our 
fundamental law. Though its passage was certain, he pre- 
pared a veto message. He then permitted the congres- 
sional leaders to know wdiat he intended to do when the 
bill should reach him. Gall and wormwood are weak terms 
for the bitterness that may be tasted in the speeches of the 
Vindictives. When, in order to save the bill, a resolution 
was appended purging it of the interpretation which Lin- 
coln condemned, Trumbull passionately declared that Con- 
gress was being "coerced" by the President. "No one at a 
distance," is the deliberate conclusion of Julian who was 
present, "could have formed any adequate conception of 
the hostility of the Republican members toward Lincoln 



LINCOLN EMERGES 257 

at the final adjournment, while it was the belief of many 
that our last session of Congress had been held in Wash- 
ington. Mr. Wade said the countiy was going to hell, and 
that the scenes witnessed in the French Revolution were 
nothing in comparison with what we should see here."^® 

Lincoln endured the rage of Congress in unwavering 
serenity. On the last day of the session, Congress sur- 
rendered and sent to him both the Confiscation Act and 
the explanatory resolution. Thereupon, he indulged in 
what must have seemed to those fierce hysterical enemies 
of his a wanton stroke of irony. He sent them along with 
his approval of the bill the text of the veto message he 
would have sent had they refused to do what he wanted. ^^ 
There could be no concealing the fact that the President 
had matched his will against the will of Congress, and that 
the President had had his way. 

Out of this strange period of intolerable confusion, a 
gigantic figure had at last emerged. The outer and the 
inner Lincoln had fused. He was now a coherent person- 
ality, masterful in spite of his gentleness, with his own 
peculiar fashion of self-reliance, having a policy of his own 
devising, his colors nailed upon the masthead. 



AUDACITIES 



262 LINCOLN 

Lincoln's religious life reveals the same general divi- 
sions that are to be found in his active life: from the be- 
ginning to about the time of his election; from the close 
of i860 to the middle of 1862; the remainder. 

Of his religious experience in the first period, very little 
is definitely known. What glimpses we have of it both 
fulfill and contradict the forest religion that was about him 
in his youth. The superstition, the faith in dreams, the 
dim sense of another world surrounding this, the belief in 
communion between the two, these are the parts of him 
that are based unchangeably in the forest shadows. But 
those other things, the spiritual passions, the ecstasies, the 
vague sensing of the terribleness of the creative powers, — 
to them always he made no response. And the crude 
philosophizing of the forest theologians, their fiercely simple 
dualism — God and Satan, thunder and lightning, the 
eternal war in the heavens, the eternal lake of fire — it 
meant nothing to him. Like all the furious things of life, 
evil appeared to him as mere negation, a mysterious fool- 
ishness he could not explain. His aim was to forget it. 
Goodness and pity were the active elements that roused him 
to think of the other world; especially pity. The burden 
of men's tears, falling ever in the shadows at the backs of 
things — this was the spiritual horizon from v.'hich he could 
not escape. Out of the circle of that horizon he had to 
rise by spiritual apprehension in order to be consoled. And 
there is no reason to doubt that at times, if not invariably, 
in his early days, he did rise; he found consolation. But 
it was all without form. It was a sentiment, a mood, 
philosophically bodiless. This indefinite mysticism was 
the real heart of the forest w^orld, closer than hands or feet, 
but elusive, incapable of formulation, a presence, not an 



THE MYSTICAL STATESMAN 263 

idea. Before the task of expressing it, the forest mystic 
stood helpless. Just what it was that he felt impinging 
upon him from every side he did not know. He was Hke a 
sensitive man, neither scientist nor poet, in the midst of a 
night of stars. The reality of his experience gave him no 
power either to explain or to state it. 

There is little reason to suppose that Lincoln's religious 
experience previous to i860 was more than a recurrent 
visitor in his daily life. He has said as much himself. He 
told his friend Noah Brooks "he did not remember any 
precise time when he passed through any special change of 
purpose, or of heart, but he would say that his own election 
to office and the crisis immediately following, influentially 
determined him in what he called 'a process of crystalliza- 
tion' then going on in his mind.''^ 

It was the terrible sense of need— the humility, the fear 
that he might not be equal to the occasion— that searched 
his soul, that bred in him the craving for a spiritual up- 
holding which should be constant. And at this crucial 
moment came the death of his favorite son. "In the 
lonely grave of the little one lay buried Mr. Lincoln's fond- 
est hopes, and strong as he was in the matter of self-con- 
trol, he gave way to an overmastering grief which became 
at length a serious menace to his health. "^ Though first- 
hand accounts differ as to just how he struggled forth out 
of this darkness, all agree that the ordeal was very severe. 
Tradition makes the crisis a visit from the Reverend 
Francis Vinton, rector of Trinity Church, New York, and 
his eloquent assertion of the faith in immortality, his appeal 
to Lincoln to remember the sorrow of Isaac over the death 
of Benjamin, to rise by faith out of his own sorrow even 
as the patriarch rose.^ 



264 LINCOLN 

Though Lincoln succeeded in putting his grief behind 
him, he never forgot it. Long afterward, he called the 
attention of Colonel Cannon to the lines in King John: 

"And Father Cardinal, I have heard you say 
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven ; 
If that be true, I shall see my boy again." 

"Colonel," said he, "did you ever dream of a lost 
friend, and feel that you were holding sweet communion 
with that friend, and yet have a sad consciousness that it 
was not a reality? Just so, I dream of my boy, Willie." 
And he bent his head and burst into tears.* 

As he rose in the sphere of statecraft with such ap- 
parent suddenness out of the doubt, hesitation, self-distrust 
of the spring of 1862 and in the summer found himself 
poHtically, so at the same time he found himself religiously. 
During his later life though the evidences are slight, they 
are convincing. And again, as always, it is not a violent 
change that takes place, but merely a better harmonization 
of the outer and less significant part of him with the inner 
and more significant. His religion continues to resist in- 
tellectual formulation. He never accepted any definite 
creed. To the problems of theology, he applied the same 
sort of reasoning that he applied to the problems of the 
law. He made a distinction, satisfactory to himself at 
least, between the essential and the incidental, and rejected 
everything that did not seem to him altogether essential. 

In another negative way his basal part asserted itself. 
Just as in all his official relations he was careless of ritual, 
so in religion he was not drawn to its ritualistic forms. 
Again, the forest temper surviving, changed, into such dif- 
ferent conditions! Real and subtle as is the ritualistic 



THE MYSTICAL STATESMAN 265 

element, not only in religion but in life generally, one may 
doubt whether it counts for much among those who ha\-e 
been formed mainly by the influences of nature. It im- 
plies more distance between the emotion and its source, 
more need of stimulus to arouse and organize emotion, 
than the children of the forest are apt to be aware of. 
To invoke a philosophical distinction, illumination rather 
than ritualism, the tense but variable concentration on a 
result, not the ordered mode of an approach, is what dis- 
tinguishes such characters as Lincoln. It was this that 
made him careless of form in all the departments of life. 
It was one reason why IMcClellan, born ritualist of the 
pomp of war, could never overcome a certain dislike, or 
at least a doubt, of him. 

Putting together his habit of thinking only in essentials 
and his predisposition to neglect form, it is not strange 
that he said: "I have never united myself to any church 
because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, with- 
out mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements 
of Christian doctrine which characterize their Articles of 
Belief and Confessions of Faith. When any church will 
inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for mem- 
bership, the Savior's condensed statement of the substance 
of both Law and Gospel, Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' that church 
will I join with all my heart and with all my soul."^ 

But it must not be supposed that his religion was mere 
ethics. It had three cardinal possessions. The sense of 
God is through all his later life. It appears incidentally 
in his state papers, clothed with language which, in so 
deeply sincere a man, must be taken literally. He believed 



266 LINCOLN 

in prayer, in the reality of communion with the Divine. 
His third article was immortahty. 

At Washington, Lincoln was a regular attendant, though 
not a communicant, of the New York Avenue Presbyterian 
Church. With the Pastor, the Reverend P. D. Gurley, 
he formed a close friendship. Many hours they passed 
in intimate talk upon; religious subjects, especially upon 
the question of immortality.® To another pious visitor he 
said earnestly, "I hope I am a Christian."' Could any- 
thing but the most secure faith have written this "Meditation 
on the Divine Will" which he set down in the autumn 
of 1862 for no eye but his own: "The will of God pre- 
vails. In great contests each party claims to act in ac- 
cordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must 
be, Avrong. God can not be for and against the same thing 
at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite pos- 
sible that God's purpose is something different from the 
purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentali- 
ties, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to 
effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is 
probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that 
it shall not end yet. By His mere great power on the minds 
of the now contestants. He could have either saved or de- 
stroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the con- 
test began. And, having begun. He could give the final 
victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds."^ 

His religion flowered in his later temper. It did not, 
to be sure, overcome his melancholy. That was too deeply 
laid. Furthermore, we fail to discover in the surviving 
evidences any certainty that it was a glad phase of religion. 
Neither the ecstatic joy of the wild women, which his 
mother had; nor the placid joy of the ritualist, which he 



THE MYSTICAL STATESMAN 267 

did not understand; nor those other variants of the joy 
of faith, were included in his portion. It was a lofty but 
grave rehgion that matured in his final stage. Was it due 
to far-away Puritan ancestors? Had austere, reticent Iron- 
sides, sure of the Lord, but taking no Hberties with their 
souls, at last found out their descendant? It may be. 
Cromwell, in some ways, was undeniably his spiritual kins- 
man. In both, the same aloofness of soul, the same indiffer- 
ence to the judgments of the world, the same courage, the 
same fatalism, the same encompassment by the shadovv of 
the Most High. Cromwell, in his best mood, had he been 
gifted with Lincoln's literary power, could have written 
the Fast Day Proclamation of 1863 which is Lincoln's most 
distinctive religious fragment. 

However, Lincoln's gloom had in it a correcting ele- 
ment which the old Puritan gloom appears to have lacked 
It placed no veto upon mirth. Rather, it valued mirth as 
Its own redeemer. And Lincoln's growth in the religious 
sense was not the cause of any diminution of his surface 
hilarity. He saved himself from what otherwise would 
have been intolerable melancholy by seizing, regardless of 
the connection, anything whatsoever that savored of the 
comic. 

His religious security did not destroy his superstition 
He contmued to believe that he would die violently at the 
end of his career as President. But he carried that belief 
almost with gaiety. He refused to take precautions for 
his safety. Long lonely rides in the dead of night; night 
walks with a single companion, were constant anxieties'^to 
his intimates. To the President, their fears were childish 
Although m the sensibilities he could suffer all he had ever 
suffered, and more; in the mind he had attained that high 



268 LINCOLN 

serenity in which there can be no flagging of effort be- 
cause of the conviction that God has decreed one's work; 
no failure of confidence because of the twin conviction 
that somehow, somewhere, all things work together for 
good. "I am glad of this interview," he said in reply to 
a deputation of visitors, in September, 1862, "and glad 
to know that I have your sympathy and your prayers. . . . 
I happened to be placed, being a humble instrument in the 
hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, 
to work out His great purpose. ... I have sought His 
aid; but if after endeavoring to do my best in the light He 
affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe that for 
some purpose unknown to me He wills it otherwise. If 
I had my way, this war would never have commenced. If 
I had been allowed my way, this war would have been 
ended before this; but it still continues and we must be- 
lieve that He permits it for some wise purpose of His own, 
mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our lim- 
ited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, 
yet we can not but believe that He who made the world 
still governs it."^ 



XXIV 



GAMBLING IN GENERALS 



On July 22, 1862, there was a meeting of the Cabinet. 
The sessions of Lincohi's Council were the last word for 
informality. The President and the Ministers interspersed 
their great affairs with mere talk, story-telling, gossip. 
With one exception they were all lovers of their own voices, 
especially in .the telling of tales. Stanton was the excep- 
tion. Gloomy, often in ill-health, innocent of humor, he 
glowered when the others laughed. When the President, 
instead of proceeding at once to business, would pull out 
of his pocket the latest volume of Artemus Ward, the 
irate War ]\Iinister felt that the overthrow of the nation 
was impending. But in this respect, the President was 
incorrigible. He had been known to stop the line of his 
guests at a public levee, while he talked for some five min- 
utes in a whisper to an important personage; and though 
all the room thought that Jupiter was imparting state se- 
crets, in point of fact, he was making sure of a good story 
the great man had told him a few days previous.^ His 
Cabinet meetings were equally careless of social form. The 
Reverend Robert Collyer was witness to this fact in a 
curious way. Strolling through the White House grounds, 
"his attention was suddenly arrested by the apparition of 
three pairs of feet resting on the ledge of an open window 
in one of the apartments of the second story and plainly 
! visible from below." He asked a gardener for an explana- 

269 



270 LINCOLN 

tion. The brusk reply was : "Why, you old fool, that's the 
Cabinet that is a-settin', and them thar big feet are ole 
Abe's."2 

When the Ministers assembled on Jul}^ twenty-second 
they had no intimation that this was to be a record session. 
Imagine the astonishment when, in his usual casual way, 
though with none of that hesitancy to which they had grown 
accustomed, Lincoln announced his new policy, adding that 
he "wished it understood that the question was settled in his 
own mind; that he had decreed emancipation in a certain 
contingency and the responsibility of the measure was his."^ 
President and Cabinet talked it over in their customary 
offhand way, and Seward made a suggestion that instantly 
riveted Lincoln's attention. Seward thought the moment 
was ill-chosen. "If the Proclamation were issued now, it 
would be received and considered as a despairing cry — a 
shriek from and for the Administration, rather than for 
freedom."^ He added the picturesque phrase, "The gov- 
ernment stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of 
Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government." 
This idea struck Lincoln with very great force. It was an 
aspect of the case "which he had entirely overlooked."^ 
He accepted Seward's advice, laid aside the proclamation he 
had drafted and turned again with all his energies to the 
organization of victory. 

The next day Halleck arrived at Washington. He was 
one of Lincoln's mistakes. However, in his new mood, 
Lincoln was resolved to act on his own opinion of the 
evidence before him, especially in estimating men. It is 
just possible that this epoch of his audacities began in a 
reaction ; that after too much self-distrust, he went briefly 
to the other extreme, indulging in too much self-confidence. 



GAMBLING IN GENERALS 271 

Be that as it may, he liad formed exaggerated opinions of 
both these Western generals, Halleck and Pope. Somehow, 
in die brilHant actions along the Mississippi they had ab^ 
sorbed far more than their fair share of credit. Particu- 
larly, Lincoln went astray with regard to Pope. Doubtless 
a main reason why he accepted the plan of campaign sug- 
gested by Halleck was the opportunity which it offered to 
Pope. Perhaps, too, the fatality in McClellan's character 
turned the scale. He begged to be left where he was with 
his base on James River, and to be allowed to renew the 
attack on Richmond. But he did not take the initiative. 
The government must swiftly hurry up reinforcements and 
then— the old, old story! Obviously, it was a question at 
Washmgton either of superseding McClellan and leaving 
the army where it was, or of shifting the army to some 
otlier commander without in so many words disgracing 
McClellan. Halleck's approval of the latter course jumped 
with two of Lincoln's impulses— his trust in Pope his 
reluctance to disgrace McClellan. Orders were issued trans- 
ferrmg the bulk of the army of the Potomac to the new 
army of Virginia lying south of Washington under the 
command of Pope. McClellan was instructed to withdraw 
his remaining forces from the Peninsula and retrace his 
course up the Potomac.^ 
/ Lincoln had committed one of his worst blunders 
Herndon has a curious, rather subtle theory that while Lin- 
coin's judgments of men in the aggregate were uncannily 
\ sure, his judgments of men individually were unreliable 
It suggests the famous remark of Goethe that his views of 
women did not derive from experience; that they antedated 
experience; and that he corrected experience by them. Of 
the confessed artist this may be true. The literary concept 



272 LINCOLN 

which the artist works with is often, apparently, a more 
constant, more fundamental, more significant thing, than 
is the broken, mixed, inconsequential impression out of 
which it has been wrought. Which seems to explain why 
some of the writers who understand human nature so well 
in their books, do not always understand people similarly 
well in life. And always it is to be remembered that Lin- 
coln was made an artist by nature, and made over into a 
man of action by circumstance. If Herndon's theory has 
any value it is in asserting his occasional danger — by no 
means a constant danger — of fonning in his mind images 
of men that were more significant than it was possible for 
the men themselves to be. John Pope was perhaps his 
worst instance. An incompetent general, he was capable of 
things still less excusable. Just after McClellan had so 
tragically failed in the Seven Days, when Lincoln was at 
the front. Pope was busy with the Committee, assuring 
them virtually that the war had been won in the West, and 
that only McClellan's bungling had saved the Confederacy 
from speedy death.'' But somehow Lincoln trusted him, 
and continued to trust him even after he had proved his /] 
incompetency in the catastrophe at Manassas. 

During August, Pope marched gaily southward issuing 
orders that were shot through with bad rhetoric, mixing 
up army routine and such irrelevant matters as "the first 
blush of dawn." 

Lincoln was confident of victory. And after victory 
would come the new policy, the dissipation of the European 
storm-cloud, the break-up of the vindictive coalition of 
Jacobins and Abolitionists, the new enthusiasm for the 
war. But of all this, the incensed Abolitionists received 
no hint. The country rang with their denunciations of 



GAMBLING IN GENERALS 273 

the President. At length, Greeley printed in The Tribune 
an open letter called 'The Prayer of Twenty Millions." 
It was an arraignment of what Greeley chose to regard as 
the pro-slavery policy of the Administration. This was 
on August twentieth. Lincoln, in high hope that a victory 
was at hand, seized the opportunity both to hint to the 
country that he was about to change his policy, and to 
state unconditionally his reason for changing. He replied 
to Greeley through the newspapers : 

"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I 
have meant to leave no one in doubt. 

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest 
way under the Constitution. The sooner the national au- 
thority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 'the 
Union as it was.' If there be those who would not save 
the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, 
I do not agree with them. If there be those who would 
not save the Union, unless they could at the same time de- 
stroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount 
object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not 
either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the 
Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I 
could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and 
if I could save it by freeing some of the slaves and leaving 
others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery 
and the colored race, I do because I believe it will help 
to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because 
I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall 
do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts 
the cause; and I shall do more whenever I believe that 
doing more will help the cause.''^ 

The effect of this on the Abolitionists was only to in- 



274 LINCOLN 

crease their rage. The President was compared to Doug- 
las with his indifference whether slavery was voted "up or 
down."^ Lincoln, now so firmly hopeful, turned a deaf 
ear to these railing accusations. He was intent upon watch- 
ing the army. It was probably at this time that he reached 
an unfortunate conclusion with regard to McClellan. The 
transfer of forces from the James River to northern Vir- 
ginia had proceeded slowly. It gave rise to a new con- 
troversy, a new crop of charges. McClellan was accused 
of being dilatory on purpose, of aiming to cause the failure 
of Pope. Lincoln accepted, at last, the worst view of him. 
He told Hay that "it really seemed that McClellan wanted 
Pope defeated. . . . The President seemed to think 
him a little crazy."^^ 

But still the confidence in Pope, marching so bhthely 
through "the blush of dawn," stood fast. If ever an Ad- 
ministration was in a fool's paradise, it was Lincoln's, in 
the last few days of August, while Jackson was stealthily 
carrying out his great flanking movement getting between 
Pope and Washington. However, the suspicious Stanton 
kept his eyes on McClellan. He decided that troops were 
being held back from Pope ; and he appealed to other mem- 
bers of the Cabinet to join with him in a formal demand 
upon the President for McClellan's dismissal from the 
army. While the plan was being discussed, came the ap- 
palling news of Pope's downfall. 

The meeting of the Cabinet, September second, was 
another revelation of the new independence of the Presi- 
dent. Three full days had passed since Pope had, tele- 
graphed that the battle was lost and that he no longer had 
control of his army. The Ministers, awaiting the arrival 



GAMBLING IN GENERALS 275 

of the President, talked excitedly, speculating what would 
happen next. "It was stated," says Welles in his diary, 
"that Pope was falling back, intending to retreat within the 
Washington entrenchments. . . . Blair, who has 
known him intimately, says he is a braggart and a liar, 
with some courage, perhaps, but not much capacity. The 
general conviction is that he is a failure here, and there is a 
belief . . . that he has not been seconded and sustained 
as he should have been by McClellan . . ." Stanton 
entered; terribly agitated. He had news that fell upon the 
Cabinet like a bombshell. He said "in a suppressed voice, 
trembling with excitement, he was informed that McClellan 
had been ordered to take command of the forces in Wash- 
ington." 

Never was there a more tense moment in the Cabinet 
room than when Lincoln entered that day. And all could 
see that he was in deep distress. But he confirmed Stanton's 
information. That very morning he had gone himself to 
McClellan's house and had asked him to resume command. 
Lincoln discussed McClellan with the Cabinet quite simply, 
admitting all his bad qualities, but finding two points in his 
favor — his power of organization, and his popularity with 
the men.^^ 

He was still more frank with his secretaries. " 'He has 
acted badly in this matter,' Lincoln said to Hay, 'but we 
must use what tools we have. There is no man in the 
army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops 
of ours into shape half as well as he.' I spoke of the gen- 
eral feeling against McClellan as evinced by the President's 
mail. He rejoined: 'Unquestionably, he has acted badly 
toward Pope; he wanted him to fail. That is unpardon- 



2-6 LINCOLN 

able, but he is too useful now to sacrifice.' "^^ At another 
time, he said: " 'If he can't fight himself, he excels in mak- 
ing others ready to fight.' "^^ 

]\IcClellan justified Lincoln's confidence. In this case, 
Herndon's theory of Lincoln's powers of judgment does 
not apply. Though probably unfair on the one point of 
McClellan's attitude to Pope, he knew his man otherwise. 
Lincoln had also discovered that Halleck, the veriest mar- 
tinet of a general, was of little value at a crisis. During 
the next two months, McClellan, under the direct oversight 
of the President, was the organizer of victory. 

Toward the middle of September, when Lee and McClel- 
lan were gradually converging upon the fated line of An- 
tietam Creek, Lincoln's new firmness was put to the test. 
The immediate effect of ^lanassas was another, a still more 
vehement outcry for an anti-slavery policy. A deputation 
of Chicago clergymen went to Washington for the purpose 
of urging him to make an anti-slavery pronouncement. The 
journey was a continuous ovation. If at any time Lincoln 
was tempted to forget Seward's worldly wisdom, it was 
when these influential zealots demanded of him to do the 
very thing he intended to do. But it was one of the charac- 
teristics of this final Lincoln that when once he had fully 
determined on a course of action, nothing could deflect 
him. With consummate coolness he gave them no new 
light on his purpose. Instead, he seized the opportunity 
to "feel" the country. He played the role of advocatiis 
diaholi arguing the case against an emancipation policy.^* 
They met his argument with great spirit and resolution. 
Taking them as an index, there could be little question that 
the country was ripe for the new policy. At the close of 
the interview Lincoln allowed himself to jest. One of the 



GAMBLING IN GENERALS 277 

clergymen dramatically charged him to give heed to their 
message as to a direct commission from the Almighty. "Is 
it not odd," said Lincoln, "that the only channel he could 
send it was that roundabout route by the awfully wicked 
city of Chicago?"* 

Lincoln's pertinacity, holding fast the program he had 
accepted, came to its reward. On the seventeenth occurred 
that furious carnage along the Antietam known as the blood- 
iest single day of the whole war. !Militar\- men have dis- 
agreed, calling it sometimes a victory, sometimes a drawn 
battle. In Lincoln's political strategy the dispute is imma- 
terial. Psychologically, it was a Northern victory. The 
retreat of Lee was regarded by the North as the turn of 
the tide. Lincoln's opportunity had arrived. 

Again, a unique event occurred in a Cabinet meeting. 
On the twenty-second of September, with the cannon of 
Antietam still ringing in their imagination, the ^Ministers 
were asked by the President whether they had seen the new 
volume just published by Artemus \\'ard. As they had 
not, he produced it and read aloud with evident relish one 
of those bits of nonsense which, in the age of Dickens, 
seemed funny enough. IMost of the Cabinet joined in the 
merriment — Stanton, of course, as always, excepted. Lin- 
coln closed the book, pulled himself together, and became 
serious. 

"Gentlemen," said he, according to the diary of Sec- 
retary Chase, "I have, as you are aware, thought a great 



* Reminiscences, 335. This retort is given by Schuyler Colfax. 
There are various reports of what Lincoln said. In another version, 
''I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable 
that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with 
my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me. . . ." 
Tarbell, II, 120. 



278 LINCOLN 

deal about the relation of this war to slavery; and you all 
remember that several weeks ago I read you an order I 
had prepared on this subject, which, on account of objec- 
tions made by some of you, was not issued. Ever since, 
my mind has been much occupied with this subject, and I 
have thought all along that the time for acting on it might 
probably come. I think the time has come now. I wish it 
was a better time. I wish that we were in a better condi- 
tion. The action of the army against the Rebels has not 
been quite what I should have best liked. But they have 
been driven out of Maryland; and Pennsylvania is no longer 
in danger of invasion. When the Rebel army was at 
Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be driven out 
of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of emancipation, such 
as I thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing to 
any one, but I made the promise to myself, and [hesitating 
a little] to my Maker. The Rebel army is now driven 
out and I am going to fulfill that promise. I have got you 
together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish 
your advice about the main matter, for that I have deter- 
mined for myself. This, I say without intending anything 
but respect for any one of you. But I already know the 
views of each on this question. They have been heretofore 
expressed, and I have considered them as thoroughly and 
as carefully as I can. What I have written is that which 
my reflections have determined me to say. ... I must 
do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the 
course which I feel I ought to take."^^ The next day the 
Proclamation was published. 

This famous document^^ is as remarkable for the parts 
of it that are now forgotten as for the rest. The remem- 
bered portion is a warning that on the first of January — one 



GAMBLING IN GENERALS 279 

hundred days subsequent to the date of the Proclamation — 
"all persons held as slaves within any State or designated 
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion 
against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and 
forever free." The forgotten portions include four other 
declarations of executive policy. Lincoln promised that 
"the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens 
of the United States v^ho have remained loyal thereto 
. . . shall be compensated for all losses by acts of the 
United States, including the loss of slaves." He announced 
that he would again urge upon Congress "the adoption of 
a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid" to all the loyal 
Slave States that would "voluntarily adopt immediate or 
gradual abolishment of slavery within their limits." He 
would continue to advise the colonization of free Africans 
abroad. There is still to be mentioned a detail of the Proc- 
lamation which, except for its historical setting in the 
general perspective of Lincoln's political strategy, would 
appear inexplicable. One might expect in the opening state- 
ment, where the author of the Proclamation boldly assumes 
dictatorial power, an immediate linking of that assumption 
with the matter in hand. But this does not happen. The 
Proclamation begins with the following paragraph : ^^--^ 
"I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of 
America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as 
heretofore, the war w^ill be prosecuted for the object of 
practically restoring the constitutional relation between the 
United States and each of the States and the people thereof 
in which States that relation is or may be suspended or dis- 
turbed." 



XXV 

A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 

By the autumn of 1862, Lincoln had acquired the same 
poHtical method that Seward had displayed in the spring 
of 1 861. What a chasm separates the two Lincolns! The 
cautious, contradictory, almost timid statesman of the 
Sumter episode; the confident, unified, quietly masterful I 
statesman of the Emancipation Proclamation. Now, in 
action, he was capable of staking his whole future on the 
soundness of his own thinking, on his own ability to fore- 
cast the inevitable. Without waiting for the results of the 
Proclamation to appear, but in full confidence that he had 
driven a wedge between the Jacobins proper and the mere 
Abolitionists, he threw down the gage of battle on the issue 
of a constitutional dictatorship. Two days after issuing 
the Proclamation he virtually proclaimed himself dictator 
He did so by means of a proclamation which divested the 
w^hole American people of the privileges of the writ of^ 
habeas corpus. The occasion was the effort of State gov- 
ernments to establish conscription of their militia. The 
Proclamation delivered any one impeding that attempt into 
the hands of the military authorities without trial. 

Here was Lincoln's final answer to Stevens; here, his 
audacious challenge to the Jacobins. And now appeared 
the wisdom of his political strategy, holding back emanci- 
pation until Congress was out of the way. Had Congress 
been in session what a hubbub would have ensued! 

280 



/ 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 281 

Chandler, Wade, Trumbull, Sumner, Stevens, all hurrying 
to join issue on the dictatorship; to get it before the country- 
ahead of emancipation. Rather, one can not imagine Lin- 
coln daring to play this second card, so soon after the first, 
except with abundant time for the two issues to disentangle 
themselves in the public mind ere Congress met. And that 
was what happened. When the Houses met in December, 
the Jacobins found their position revolutionized. The 
men who, in July at the head of the Vindictive coalition, 
dominated Congress, were now a minority faction biting 
their nails at the President amid the ruins of their coalition. 

There were three reasons for this collapse. First of 
all, the Abolitionists, for the moment, were a faction by 
themselves. Six weeks had sufficed to intoxicate them 
with their opportunity. The significance of the Proclama- 
tion had had time to arise towering on their spiritual vision, 
one of the gates of the New Jerusalem. 

Limited as it was in application who could doubt that, 
with one condition, it doomed slavery everywhere. The 
condition was a successful prosecution of the war, the 
restoration of the Union. Consequently, at that moment, 
nothing that made issue with the President, that threatened 
any limitation of his efficiency, had the slightest chance of 
Abolitionist support. The one dread that alarmed the whole 
Abolitionist group was a possible change in the President's 
mood, a possible recantation on January first. In order to 
hold him to his word, they were ready to humor him as one 
might cajole, or try to cajole, a monster that one was 
afraid of. No time, this, to talk to Abolitionists about 
strictly constitutional issues, or about questions of party 
leadership. Away with all your "gabble" about such small 
things! The Jacobins saw the moving hand — at least for 



282 LINCOLN 

this moment — on the crumbhng wall of the palace of their 
delusion. 

Many men who were not Abolitionists perceived, before 
Congress met, that Lincoln had made a great stroke inter- 
nationally. The "Liberal party throughout the world" 
gave a cry of delight, and rose instantly to his support. 
John Bright declared that the Emancipation Proclamation 
"made it impossible for England to intervene for the 
South" and derided "the silly proposition of the French 
Emperor looking toward intervention."^ Bright's closest 
friend in America was Sumner and Sumner was chairman 
of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He under- 
stood the value of international sentiment, its working im- 
portance, as good provincials like Chandler did not. 
Furthermore, he was always an Abolitionist first and a 
Jacobin second — if at all. From this time forward, the 
Jacobins were never able to count on him, not even when 
they rebuilt the Vindictive Coalition a year and a half later. 
In December, 1862, how did they dare — true blue poli- 
ticians that they were ! — how did they dare raise a constitu- 
tional issue involving the right of the President to capture, 
in the way he had, international security? 

The crowning irony in the new situation of the Jacobins 
was the revelation that they had played unwittingly into 
the hands of the Democrats. Their short-sighted astute- 
ness in tying up emancipation with the war powers was 
matched by an equal astuteness equally short-sighted. The 
organization of the Little Men, when it refused to endorse 
Lincoln's all-parties program, had found itself in the absurd 
position of a party without an Issue. It contained, to be 
sure, a large proportion of the Northerners who were 
opposed to emancipation. But how could it make an issue 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 283 

upon emancipation, as long as the President, the object of 
its antagonism, also refused to support emancipation? The 
sole argument in the Cabinet against Lincoln's new policy 
was that it would give the Democrats an issue. Shrewd 
Montgomery Blair prophesied that on this issue they could 
carry the autumn elections for Congress. Lincoln had re- 
plied that he would take the risk. He presented them with 
the issue. They promptly accepted it. But they did not 
stop there. They aimed to take over the whole of the 
position that had been vacated by the collapse of the Vin- 
dictive Coalition. By an adroit bit of political legerdemain 
they would steal their enemies' thunder, reunite the emanci- 
pation issue with the issue of the war powers, reverse the 
significance of the conjunction, and, armed with this double 
club, they would advance from a new and unexpected angle 
and win the leadership of the country by overthrowing the 
dictator. And this, they came very near doing. On their 
double issue they rallied enough support to increase their 
number in Congress by thirty-three. Had not the moment 
been so tragic, nothing could have been more amusing than 
the helpless wrath of the Jacobins caught in their own trap, 
compelled to gnaw their tongues in silence, while the Demo- 
crats, paraphrasing their own arguments, hurled defiance 
at Lincoln. 

Men of intellectual courage might have broken their 
party ranks, daringly applied Lincoln's own maxim "stand 
with any one who stands right," and momentarily joined 
the Democrats in their battle against the two proclamations. 
But in American politics, with a few glorious exceptions, 
courage of this sort has never been the order of the day. 
The Jacobins kept their party line; bowed their heads to 
the storm; and bided their time. In the Senate, an indis- 



284 LINCOLN 

creet resolution commending the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion was ordered to be printed, and laid on the table. ^ In 
the House, party exigencies were more exacting. Despite 
the Democratic successes, the Republicans still had a 
majority. When the Democrats made the repudiation of 
the President a party issue, arguing on those very grounds 
that had aroused the eloquence of Stevens and the rest — 
why, what's the Constitution between friends! Or between 
political enemies ? The Democrats forced all the Republicans 
into one boat by introducing a resolution "That the policy 
of emancipation as indicated in that Proclamation , . . 
is an assumption of powers dangerous to the rights of 
citizens and to the perpetuity of a free people." The reso- 
lution was rejected. Among those who voted NO was 
Stevens.^ Indeed, the star of the Jacobins was far down 
on the horizon. 

But the Jacobins were not the men to give up the game 
until they were certainly in the last ditch. Though their 
issues had been slipped out of their hands ; though for the 
moment at least, it was not good policy to fight the Presi- 
dent on a principle; it might still be possible to recover 
their prestige on some other contention. The first of Janu- 
ary was approaching. The final proclamation of emanci- 
pation would bring to an end the temporary alliance of the 
Administration and the Abolitionists. Who could say 
what new pattern of affairs the political kaleidoscope might 
not soon reveal? Surely the Jacobin cue was to busy 
themselves, straightway, making trouble for the President. 
Principles being unavailable, practices might do. And 
who was satisfied with the way the war was going? To 
rouse the party against the Administration on the ground 
of inefficient practices, of unsatisfactory military progress, 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 285 

might be the first step toward regaining their former 
dominance. 

There was a feather in the wind that gave them hope. 
The ominous first paragraph of the Emancipation Procla- 
mation was evidence that the President was still stubbornly 
for his own policy; that he had not surrendered to the 
opposite view. But this was not their only strategic hope. 
Lincoln's dealings with the army between September and 
December might, especially if anything in his course proved 
to be mistaken, deliver him into their hands. 

Following Antietam, Lincoln had urged upon McClellan 
swift pursuit of Lee. His despatches were strikingly 
different from those of the preceding spring. That half 
apologetic tone had disappeared. Though they did not 
command, they gave advice freely. The tone was at least 
that of an equal who, while not an authority in this par- 
ticular matter, is entitled to express his views and to have 
them taken seriously. 

"You remember my speaking to you of what I called 
your over-cautiousness? Are you not over-cautious when 
you assume that you can not do what the enemy is constantly 
doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in 
prowess and act upon that claim . . . one of the 
standard maxims of war, as you know, is to operate upon 
the enemy's communications as much as possible without 
exposing your own. You seem to act as if this applies 
against you, but can not apply in your favor. Change 
positions with the enemy and think you not he would break 
your communications with Richmond within the next 
twenty- four hours. . . . 

'Tf he should move northward, I would follow him 
closely, holding his communications, li he should prevent 



286 LINCOLN 

your seizing his communications and move toward Rich- 
mond, I would press closely to him, fight him if a favor- 
able opportunity should present, and at least try to beat 
him to Richmond on the inside track. I say 'try'; if we 
never try we shall never succeed. . . . We should not 
operate so as to merely drive him away. . . . This 
letter is in no sense an order."* 

But once more the destiny that is in character inter- 
vened, and McClellan's tragedy reached its climax. His 
dread of failure hypnotized his will. So cautious were his 
movements that Lee regained Virginia with his army in- 
tact. Lincoln was angry. Military amateur though he 
was, he had filled his spare time reading books on strategy, 
V^on Clausewitz and the rest, and he had grasped the idea 
that war's aim is not to win technical victories, nor to take 
cities, but to destroy armies. He felt that McClellan had 
thrown away an opportunity of first magnitude. He re- 
moved him from command.^ 

This was six weeks after the two proclamations. The 
country was ringing with Abolition plaudits. The election 
had given the Democrats a new lease of life. The anti- 
Lincoln Republicans were silent while their party enemies 
with their stolen thunder rang the changes on the presi- 
dential abuse of the war powers. It was a moment of 
crisis in party politics. Where did the President stand? 
What was the outlook for those men who in the words of 
Senator Wilson "would rather give a policy to the Presi- 
dent of the United States than take a policy from the 
President of the United States." 

Lincoln's situation was a close parallel to the situation 
of July, 1861, when McDowell failed. Just as in choosing 
a successor to McDowell, he revealed a political attitude, so 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 287 

now, he would again make a revelation choosing a successor 
to McClellan. By passing over Fremont and by elevating 
a Democrat, he had spoken to the furious politicians in the 
language they understood. Whatever appointment he now 
made would be interpreted by those same politicians in the 
same way. In the atmosphere of that time, there was but 
one way for Lincoln to rank himself as a strict party man, 
to recant his earlier heresy of presidential independence, 
and say to the Jacobins, "I am with you." He must ap- 
point a Republican to succeed McClellan. Let him do that 
and the Congressional Cabal would forgive him. But he 
did not do it. He swept political considerations aside and 
made a purely military appointment. Burnside, on whom 
he fixed, was the friend and admirer of McClellan and 
might fairly be considered next tO' him in prestige. He 
was loved by his troops. In the eyes of the army, his 
elevation represented "a legitimate succession rather than 
the usurpation of a successful rival.''*' He was modest. 
He did not want promotion. Nevertheless, Lincoln forced 
him to take McClellan's place against his will, in spite of 
his protest that he had not the ability to command so large 
an army.'^ 

When Congress assembled and the Committee resumed 
its inquisition, Burnside was moving South on his fated 
march to Fredericksburg. The Committee watched him 
like hungry wolves. Woe to Burnside, woe to Lincoln, if 
the General failed ! Had the Little Men possessed any sort 
of vision they would have seized their opportunity to be- 
come the President's supporters. But they, like the 
Jacobins, were partisans fir^t and patriots second. In the 
division among the Republicans they saw, not a chance to 
turn the scale in the President's favor, but a chance to play 



288 LINCOLN 

politics on their own account. A picturesque Ohio poli- 
tician known as "Sunset" Cox opened the ball of their 
fatuousness with an elaborate argument in Congress to 
the effect that the President was in honor bound to regard 
the recent elections as strictly analogous to an appeal to the 
country in England; that it was his duty to remodel his 
policy to suit the Democrats, Between the Democrats and 
the Jacobins Lincoln was indeed between the devil and the 
deep blue sea with no one certainly on his side except the 
volatile Abolitionists whom he did not trust and who did 
not trust him. A great victory might carry him over. 
But a great defeat — what might not be the consequence! 

On the thirteenth of December, through Burnside's 
stubborn incompetence, thousands of American soldiers 
flung away their lives in a holocaust of useless valor at 
Fredericksburg. Promptly the Jacobins acted. They set 
up a shriek: the incompetent President, the all-parties 
dreamer, the man who persists in coquetting with the 
Democrats, is blundering into destruction! Burnside re- 
ceived the dreaded summons from the Committee. So 
staggering was the shock of horror that even moderate 
Republicans were swept away in a new whirlpool of doubt. 

But even thus it was scarcely wise, the Abolitionists 
being still fearful over the emancipation policy, to attack 
the President direct. Nevertheless, the resourceful Jacobins 
found a way to begin their new campaign, Seward, the 
symbol of moderation, the unforgivable enemy of the 
Jacobins, had recently earned anew the hatred of the Abo- 
litionists. Letters of his to Charles Francis Adams had 
appeared in print. Some of their expressions had roused 
a storm. For example : "extreme advocates of African 
slavery and its most vehement exponents are acting ir. con- 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 289 

cert together to precipitate a servile war."® To be sure, 
the date of this letter was long since, before he and Lincoln 
had changed ground on emancipation, but that did not 
matter. He had spoken evil of the cause; he should suffer. 
All along, the large number that were incapable of appreci- 
ating his lack of malice had wished him out of the Cabinet. 
As Lincoln put it : "While they seemed to believe in my 
honesty, they also appeared to think that when I had in me 
any good purpose or intention. Seward contrived to suck 
it out of me unperceived."^ 

The Jacobins were skilful politicians. A caucus of 
Republican Senators was stampeded by the cry that Seward 
was the master of the Administration, the chief explana- 
tion of failure. It was Seward who had brought them to 
the verge of despair. A committee was named to demand 
the reorganization of the Cabinet. Thereupon, Seward, 
informed of this action, resigned. The Committee of the 
Senators called upon Lincoln. He listened; did not com- 
mit himself; asked them to call again; and turned into his 
own thoughts for a mode of saving the day. 

During twenty months, since their clash in April, 1861, 
Seward and Lincoln had become friends ; not merely official 
associates, but genuine comrades. Seward's earlier con- 
descension had wholly disappeared. Perhaps his new re- 
spect for Lincoln grew out of the President's silence after 
Sumter. A few w^ords revealing the strange meddling of 
the Secretary of State w^ould have turned upon Seward the 
full fury of suspicion that destroyed McClellan. But Lin- 
coln never spoke those words. Whatever blame there was 
for the failure of the Sumter expedition, he quietly accepted 
as his own. Seward, whatever his faults, was too large a 
nature, too genuinely a lover of courage, of the non-vin- 



290 LINCOLN 

dictive temper, not to be struck with admiration. Watch- 
ing with keen eyes the unfolding of Lincohi, Seward ad- 
vanced from admiration to regard. After a while he could 
write, "The President is the best of us." He warmed to 
him ; he gave out the best of himself. Lincoln responded. 
While the other secretaries were useful, Seward became 
necessary. Lincoln, in these dark days, found comfort in 
his society.^^ Lincoln was not going to allow Seward to 
be driven out of the Cabinet. But how could he prevent 
it? He could not say. He was in a quandary. For the 
moment, the Republican leaders were so nearly of one mind 
in their antagonism to Seward, that it demanded the great- 
est courage to oppose them. But Lincoln does not appear 
to have given a thought to surrender. What puzzled him 
was the mode of resistance. 

Now that he was wholly himself, having confidence in 
whatever mode of procedure his own thought approved, he 
had begun using methods that the politicians found dis- 
concerting, ^he second conference with the Senators was 
an instance. Returning in the same mood in which they 
had left him, with no suspicion of a surprise in store, the 
Senators to their amazement were confronted by the Cab- 
inet — or most of it, Seward being absent.^^ The Senators 
were put out. This simple maneuver by the President was 
the beginning of their discomfiture. It changed their role 
from the ambassadors of an ultimatum to the participants 
in a conference. But even thus, they might have suc- 
ceeded in dominating the event, though it is hardly con- 
ceivable that they could have carried their point; they 
might have driven Lincoln into a corner; had it not been 
for the make-up of one man. Again, the destiny that is in 
character! Lincoln was delivered from a quandary by the 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 291 

course which the Secretary of the Treasury could not keep 
himself from pursuing. 

Chase, previous to this hour, may truly be called an 
imposing figure. As a leader of the extreme Republicans, 
he had earned much fame. Lincoln had given him a free 
hand in the Treasury and all the financial measures of the 
government v^ere his. Hitherto, Vindictlves of all sorts 
had loved him. He was a critic of the President's mild- 
ness, and a severe critic of Seward. But Chase was not 
candid. Though on the surface he scrupulously avoided 
any hint of cynicism, any point of resemblance to Seward, 
he was in fact far more devious, much more capable of self- 
deception. He had little of Seward's courage, and none 
of his aplomb. His condemnation of Seward had been 
confided privately to Vindictive brethren. 

When the Cabinet and the Senators met, Chase was 
placed in a situation of which he had an instinctive horror. 
His caution, his secretiveness, his adroit confidences, his 
skilful silences, had created in these two groups of men, 
two impressions of his character. The Cabinet knew him 
as the faithful, plausible Minister who found the money for 
the President. The Senators, or some of them, knew him 
as the discontented Minister who was their secret ally. 
For the two groups to compare notes, to check up their im- 
pressions, meant that Chase was going to be found out. 
And it was the central characteristic of Chase that he had 
a horror of being found out. 

The only definite result of the conference was Chase's 
realization when the Senators departed that mischance was 
his portion. In the presence of the Cabinet he had not 
the face to stick to his guns. He feebly defended Seward. 
The Senators opened their eyes and stared. The ally they 



292 LINCOLN 

had counted on had failed them. Chase bit his Hps and 
was miserable. 

The night that followed was one of deep anxiety for 
Lincoln. He was still unable to see his way out. But 
all the while the predestination in Chase's character was 
preparing the way of escape. Chase was desperately try- 
ing to discover how to save his face. An element in him 
that approached the melodramatic at last pointed the way. 
He would resign. What an admirable mode of recaptur- 
ing the confidence of his disappointed friends, carrying out 
their aim to disrupt the Cabinet! But he could not do a 
bold thing like this in Seward's way — at a stroke, without 
hesitation. When he called on Lincoln the next day with 
the resignation in his hand, he wavered. It happened that 
Welles was in the room. 

"Chase said he had been painfully affected," is Welles' 
account, "by the meeting last evening, which was a sur- 
prise, and after some not very explicit remarks as to how 
he was affected, informed the President he had prepared 
his resignation of the office of Secretary of the Treasury. 
'Where is it,' said the President, quickly, his eye lighting 
up in a moment. T brought it vv^ith me,' said Chase, tak- 
ing the paper from his pocket. T wrote it this morning.' 
*Let me have it,' said the President, reaching his long arm 
and fingers toward Chase, v/ho held on seemingly reluctant 
to part with the letter which was sealed and which he ap- 
parently hesitated to surrender. Something further he 
wished to say, but the President was eager and did not 
perceive it, but took and hastily opened the letter. 

" 'This,' said he, looking towards me with a triumphal 
laugh, 'cuts the Gordian knot.' An air of satisfaction 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 293 

spread over his countenance such as I had not seen for some 
time. T can dispose of this subject now without difficulty,' 
he added, as he turned^ in his chair; 'I see my way clear.' "^^ 

In Lincoln's distress during this episode, there was 
much besides his anxiety for the fate of a trusted minister. 
He felt he must not permit himself to be driven into the 
arms of the Vindictives by disgracing Seward. Seward 
had a following which Lincoln needed. But to proclaim 
to the world his confidence in Seward without at the same 
time offsetting it by some display of confidence, equally 
significant in the enemies of Seward, this would have 
amounted to committing himself to Seward's following 
alone. And that would not do. Should either faction 
appear to dominate him, Lincoln felt that "the whole gov- 
ernment must cave in. It could not stand, could not hold 
water; the bottom would be out."^^ 

The incredible stroke of luck, the sheer good fortune 
that Chase was Chase and nobody else, — vain, devious, 
stagey and hypersensitive, — was salvation. Lincoln promptly 
rejected both resignations and called upon both Ministers 
to resume their portfolios. They did so. The incident 
was closed. Neither faction could say that Lincoln had 
favored the other. He had saved himself, or rather. 
Chase's character had saved him, by the margin of a hair. 

For the moment, a rebuilding of the Vindictive Coali- 
tion was impossible. Nevertheless, the Jacobins, again 
balked of their prey, had it in their power, through the 
terrible Committee, to do immense mischief. The history 
of the war contains no other instance of party malice quite 
so fruitless and therefore so inexcusable as their next move. 
After severely interrogating Burnside, they published an 



294 LINCOLN 

exoneration of his motives and revealed the fact that Lin- 
coln had forced him into command against his will. The 
implication was plain. 

January came in. The Emancipation Proclamation 
was confirmed. The jubilation of the Abolitionists became, 
almost at once, a propaganda for another issue upon 
slavery. New troubles were gathering close about the 
President. The overwhelming benefit which had been 
anticipated from the new policy had not clearly arrived. 
Even army enlistments were not satisfactory. Conscrip- 
tion loomed on the horizon as an eventual necessity. A 
bank of returning cloud was covering the political horizon, 
enshrouding the White House in another depth of gloom. 
However, out of all this gathering darkness, one clear 
light solaced Lincoln's gaze. One of his chief purposes 
had been attained. In contrast to the doubtful and fac- 
tional response to his policy at home, the response abroad 
was sweeping and unconditional. He had made himself 
the hero of the "Liberal party throughout the world." 
Among the few cheery words that reached him in January, 
1863, were New Year greetings of trust and sympathy 
sent by English working men, who, because of the blockade, 
were on the verge of starvation. It was in response to 
one of these letters from the working men of Manchester 
that Lincoln wrote: 

*T have understood well that the duty of self-preserva- 
tion rests solely with the American people; but I have at 
the same time been aware that the favor or disfavor of 
foreign nations might have a material influence in enlarg- 
ing or prolonging the struggle with disloyal men in which 
the country is engaged. A fair examination of history 
has served to authorize a belief that the past actions and 




a 
< 



I 



A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES 295 

influences of the United States were generally regarded as 
having been beneficial toward mankind. I have therefore 
reckoned upon the forbearance of nations. Circumstances 
— to some of which you kindly allude — induce me especially 
to expect that if justice and good faith should be practised 
by the United States they would encounter no hostile in- 
fluence on the part of Great Britain. It is now a pleasant 
duty to acknowledge the demonstration you have given of 
your desire that a spirit of amity and peace toward this 
country may prevail in the councils of your Queen, who is 
respected and esteemed in your own country only more than 
she is by the kindred nation which has its home on this side 
of the Atlantic. 

"I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the 
working men at Manchester, and in all Europe, arc called 
on to endure in this crisis. It has been often and studiously 
represented that the attempt to overthrow this government 
which was built upon the foundation of human rights, and 
to substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on 
the basis of human slavery, was likely to obtain the favor 
of Europe. Through the action of our disloyal citizens, 
the working men of Europe have been subjected to severe 
trials for the purpose of forcing their sanction to that at- 
tempt. Under the circumstances, I can not but regard 
your decisive utterances upon the question as an instance 
of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed 
in any age or in any country. It is indeed an energetic and 
reinspiring assurance of the inherent power of the truth, 
and of the ultimate and universal triumph of justice, 
humanity and freedom. I do not doubt that the sentiments 
you have expressed will be sustained by your great nation ; 
and on the other hand, I have no hesitation in assuring 



296 LINCOLN 

you that they will excite admiration, esteem, and the most 
reciprocal feelings of friendship among the Amercan people. 
I hail this interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an augury 
that whatever else may happen, whatever misfortune may 
befall your country or my own, the peace and friendship 
which now exist betw^een the two nations, will be, as it 
shall be my desire to make them, perpetual."^* 



XXVI 

THE DICTATOR, THE MARPLOT AND THE LITTLE MEN 

While the Jacobins were endeavorirtg to reorganize the 
RepubHcan antagonism to the President, Lincoln was tak- 
ing thought how he could offset still more effectually their 
influence. In taking up the emancipation policy he had not 
abandoned his other policy of an all-parties Administration, 
or of something similar to that. By this time it was plain 
that a complete union of parties was impossible. In the 
autumn of 1862, a movement of liberal Democrats in Mich- 
igan for the purpose of a working agreement with the Re- 
publicans was frustrated by the flinty opposition of Chand- 
ler.^ However, it still seemed possible to combine portions 
of parties in an Administration group that should forswear 
the savagery of the extreme factions and maintain the war 
in a merciful temper. The creation of such a group was 
Lincoln's aim at the close of the year. 

The Republicans were not in doubt what he was driv- 
ing at. Smarting over their losses in the election, there 
was angry talk that Lincoln and Seward had "slaughtered 
the Republican party."^ Even as sane a man as John Sher- 
man, writing to his brother on the causes of the apparent 
turn of the tide could say "the first is that the Republican 
organization was voluntarily abandoned by the President 
and his leading followers, and a no-party union was formed 
to run against an old, well-drilled party organization."^ 
When Julian returned to Washington in December, he 

297 



298 LINCOLN 

found that the menace to the Republican machine was 
"generally admitted and (his) earnest opposition to it fully 
justified in the opinion of the Republican members of Con- 
gress.""* How fully they perceived their danger had been 
shown in their attempt to drive Lincoln into a corner on 
the issue of a new Cabinet. 

Even before that, Lincoln had decided on his next move. 
As in the emancipation policy he had driven a wedge be- 
tween the factions of the Republicans, so now he would 
drive a wedge into the organization of the Democrats. It 
had two parts which had little to hold them together except 
their rooted partisan habit. One branch, soon to receive 
the label "Copperhead," accepted the secession principle and 
sympathized with the Confederacy. The other, while re- 
jecting secession and supporting the war, denounced the 
emancipation policy as usurped authority, and felt personal 
hostility to Lincoln. It was the latter faction that Lincoln 
still hoped to win over. Its most important member was 
Horatio Seymour, who in the autumn of 1862 was elected 
governor of New York. Lincoln decided to operate on 
him by one of those astounding moves which to the selfless 
man seemed natural enough, by v/hich the ordinary politician 
was always hopelessly mystified. He called in Thurlow 
Weed and authorized him to make this proposal: If Sey- 
mour would bring his following into a composite Union 
party with no platform but the vigorous prosecution of the 
war, Lincoln would pledge all his influence to securing for 
Seymour the presidential nomination in 1864.^ Weed de- 
livered his message. Seymour was non-committal and Lin- 
coln had to wait for his answer until the new Governor 
should show his hand by his official acts. 

Meanwhile a nevi^ crisis had developed in the army. 



DICTATOR, MARPLOT AND LITTLE MEN 299 

Burnside's character appears to have been shattered by his 
defeat. Previous to Fredericksburg, he had seemed to be 
a generous, high-minded man. From Fredericksburg on- 
ward, he became more and more an impossible. A reflec- 
tion of McClellan in his earher stage, he was somehow 
transformed eventually into a reflection of Vindictivism. 
His later character began to appear in his first conference 
with the Committee subsequent to his disaster. They vis- 
ited him on the field and "his conversation disarmed all 
criticism," This was because he struck their own note 
to perfection. "Our soldiers," he said, "were not sufficiently 
fired by resentment, and he exhorted me [Julian] if I could, 
to breathe into our people at home the same spirit toward 
our enemies which inspired them toward us."^ What a 
transformation in McQellan's disciple! 

But the country was not won over so easily as the 
Committee. There was loud and general disapproval and 
of course, the habitual question, "Who next?" The publica- 
tion by the Committee of its insinuation that once more 
the stubborn President was the real culprit did not stem 
the tide. Bumside himself made his case steadily worse. 
His judgment, such as it was, had collapsed. He seemed 
to be stubbornly bent on a virtual repetition of his pre- 
vious folly. Lincoln felt it necessary to command him to 
make no forward move without consulting the President."^ 

Burnside's subordinates freely criticized their com- 
mander. General Hooker was the most outspoken. It was 
known that a movement was afoot — an intrigue, if you 
will — to disgrace Burnside and elevate Hooker. Chafing 
under criticism and restraint, Burnside completely lost his 
sense of propriety. On the twenty-fourth of January, 1863, 
when Henry W. Raymond, the powerful editor of the New 



300 LINCOLN 

York Times, was on a visit to the camo, Burnside took him 
into his tent and read him an order removing Hooker be- 
cause of his unfitness "to hold a command in a cause where 
so much moderation, forbearance, and unselfish patriotism 
were required." Raymond, aghast, inquired what he would 
do if Hooker resisted, if he raised his troops in mutiny? 
"He said he would swing him before sundown if he at- 
tempted such a thing." 

Raymond, though more than half in sympathy with 
Burnside, felt that the situation was startling. He hurried 
off to Washington. "I immediately," he writes, "called 
upon Secretary Chase and told him the whole story. He 
was greatly surprised to hear such reports of Hooker, and 
said he had looked upon him as the man best fitted to com- 
mand the army of the Potomac. But no man capable of so 
much and such unprincipled ambition was fit for so great 
a trust, and he gave up all thought of him henceforth. He 
wished me to go with him to his house and accompany him 
and his daughter to the President's levee. I did so and 
found a great crowd surrounding President Lincoln. I 
managed, however, to tell him in brief terms that I had 
been with the army and that many things were occurring 
there which he ought to know. I told him of the obstacles 
thrown in Burnside's way by his subordinates and espe- 
cially General Hooker's habitual conversation. He put his 
hand on my shoulder and said in my ear as if desirous of 
not being overheard, 'That is all true; Hooker talks badly; 
but the trouble is, he is stronger with the country today 
than any other man.' I ventured to ask how long he would 
retain that strength if his real conduct and character should 
be understood. 'The country,' said he, 'would not believe 
it ; they would say it was all a lie.' "^ 



DICTATOR, MARPLOT AND LITTLE MEN 301 

Whether Chase did what he said he would do and 
ceased to be Hooker's advocate, may be questioned. Tradi- 
tion preserves a deal between the Secretary and the General 
— the Secretary to urge his advancement, the General, if he 
reached his goal, to content himself with military honors 
and to assist the Secretary in succeeding to the Presidency. 
Hooker was a public favorite. The dashing, handsome 
figure of "Fighting Joe" captivated the popular imagina- 
tion. The terrible Committee w-ere his friends. Military 
men thought him full of promise., On the whole, Lincoln, 
who saw the wisdom of following up his clash over the 
Cabinet by a concession to the Jacobins, was willing to take 
his cliances with Hooker. 

His intimate advisers were not of the same mind. They 
knew that there was much talk on the theme of a possible 
dictator — not the constitutional dictator of Lincoln and 
Stevens, but the old-fashiond dictator of historical melo- 
drama. Hooker was reported to have encouraged such 
talk. All this greatly alarmed one of Lincohi's most devoted 
henchmen — Lamon, Marshal of the District of Columbia, 
who regarded himself as personally responsible for Lin- 
coln's safety. "In conversation with Mr. Lincoln," says 
Lamon, "one night about the time General Burnside was re- 
lieved, I was urging upon him the necessity of looking 
well to the fact that there was a scheme on foot to depose 
him, and to appoint a military dictator in his stead. He 
laughed and said, 'I think, for a man of accredited courage, 
you are the most panicky person I ever knew ; you can see 
more dangers to me than all the other friends I have. You 
are all the time exercised about somebody taking my life — 
murdering me; and now you have discovered a new dan- 
ger; now you think the people of this great government 



302 LINCOLN 

are likely to turn me out of office. I do not fear this from 
the people any more than I fear assassination from an indi- 
vidual. Now to show my appreciation of what my French 
friends would call a coup d'etat, let me read you a letter 
I have written to General Hooker whom I have just ap- 
pointed to the command of the army of the Potomac."^ 

Few letters of Lincoln's are better known, few reveal 
more exactly the tone of his final period, than the remark- 
able communication he addressed to Hooker two days after 
that whispered talk with Raymond at the White House 
levee : 

"General, I have placed you at the head of the army 
of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what 
appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it 
best for you to know that there are some things in regard 
to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you 
to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. 
I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, 
in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, 
which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You 
are ambitious, which within reasonable bounds, does good 
rather than harm; but I think that during General Burn- 
side's command of the army you have taken counsel of your 
ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which 
you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meri- 
torious and honorable brother officer. I have heard in 
such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that 
both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of 
course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have 
given you the command. Only those generals who gain 
successes can set up dictators. What I now ask you is 
military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The gov- 



DICTATOR, MARPLOT AND LITTLE MEN 303 

ernment will support you to the utmost of its ability, which 
is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all 
commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have 
aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their com- 
mander and withholding confidence from him, will now 
turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put 
it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive 
again, could get any good out of an army wdiile such a 
spirit prevails in it; and now beware of rashness. Beware 
of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go for- 
ward and give us victories. "^° 

The appointment of Hooker had the effect of quieting 
the Committee for the time. Lincoln turned again to his 
political scheme, but not until he had made another mili- 
tary appointment from which at the moment no one could 
have guessed that trouble would ever come. He gave to 
Burnside what might be called the sinecure position of 
Commander of the Department of the Ohio with head- 
quarters at Cincinnati. 

During the early part of 1863 Lincoln's political scheme 
received a serious blow. Seymour ranked himself as an 
irreconcilable enemy of the Administration. The anti-Lin- 
coln Republicans struck at the President in roundabout 
ways. Heralding a new attack, the best man on the Com- 
mittee, Julian, ironically urged his associates in Congress 
to "rescue" the President from his false friends — those 
mere Unionists who were luring him away from the party 
that had elected him, enticing him into a vague new party 
that should include Democrats.^ ^ It was said that there 
were only two Lincoln men in the House. ^- Greeley w^as co- 
quetting with Rosecrans, trying to induce him to come for- 
ward as Republican presidential "timber." The Committee 



304 LINCOLN 

in April published an elaborate report which portrayed the 
army of the Potomac as an army of heroes tragically af- 
flicted in the past by the incompetence of their command- 
ers. The Democrats continued their abuse of the dictator. 

It was a moment of strained pause, everybody waiting 
upon circumstance. And in Washington, every eye was 
turned Southward. How soon would they glimpse the first 
messenger from that glorious victory which "Fighting Joe" 
had promised them. "The enemy is in my power," said 
he, "and God Almighty can not deprive me of tliem."^^ 

Something of the difference between Hooker and Lin- 
coln, between all the Vindictives and Lincoln, may be felt 
by turning from these ribald words to that Fast Day Proc- 
lamation which this strange statesman issued to his people, 
that anxious spring, — that moment of trance as it were — 
when all things seemed to tremble toward the last judg- 
ment: 

"And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of 
men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of 
God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble 
sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will 
lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime 
truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all 
history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is 
the Lord : 

"And insomuch as we know that by His divine law 
nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and 
chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that 
the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the 
land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our 
presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national 
reformation as a whole people. We have been the recipi- 



DICTATOR, MARPLOT AND LITTLE MEN 305 

ents of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been 
preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We 
have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other 
nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. We 
have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in 
peace, and multiphed and enriched and strengthened us; 
and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our 
hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some 
superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with 
unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel 
the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud 
to pray to God that made us : 

"It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the 
offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray 
for clemency and forgiveness. 

"All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then 
rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings, 
that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and 
answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our 
national sins and the restoration of our now divided and 
suffering country to its former happy condition of unity 
and peace."'^ 

Alas, for such men as Hooker! What seemed to him 
in his vainglory beyond the reach of Omnipotence, was 
accomplished by Lee and Jackson and a Confederate army 
at Chancellorsville. Profound gloom fell upon Washington. 
^^'elles heard the terrible news from Sumner who came 
into his room "and raising both hands exclaimed, 'Lost, 
lost, all is lost!'"^^ 

The aftermath of Manassas was repeated. In the case 
of Pope, no effort had been spared to save the friend of the 
Committee, to find some one else on whom to load his in- 



3o6 LINCOLN 

competence. The course was now repeated. Again, the 
Jacobins raised the cry, "We are betrayed!" Again, the stir 
to injure the President. Very strange are the ironies of 
history ! At this critical moment, Lincoln's amiable mistake 
in sending Burnside to Cincinnati demanded expiation. 
Along with the definite news of Hooker's overthrow, came 
the news that Burnside had seized the Copperhead leader, 
Vallandigham, and had cast him into prison ; that a hubbub 
had ensued ; that, as the saying goes, the woods were burn- 
ing in Ohio. 

Vallandigham's offense was a public speech of which 
no accurate report survives. However, the fragments re- 
corded by "plain clothes" men in Burnside's employ, when 
set in the perspective of Vallandigham's thinking as dis- 
played in Congress, make its tenor plain enough. It was 
an out-and-out Copperhead harangue. If he was to be 
treated as hundreds of others had been, the case against 
him was plain. But the Administration's policy toward agi- 
tators had gradually changed. There was not the same 
fear of them that had existed two years before. Now the 
tendency of the Administration was to ignore them. 

The Cabinet regretted what Burnside had done. Never- 
theless, the Ministers felt that it v^ould not do to repudiate 
him. Lincoln took that view. He wrote to Burnside de- 
ploring his action and sustaining his authority. ^^ And then, 
as a sort of grim practical joke, he commuted Vallandig- 
ham's sentence from imprisonment to banishment. The 
agitator was sent across the lines into the Confederacy. 

Burnside had effectually played the marplot. Very little 
chance now of an understanding between Lincoln and 
either wing of the Democrats. The opportunity to make 
capital out of the war powers was quite too good to be 



DICTATOR, MARPLOT AND LITTLE MEN 307 

lost! Vallandigham was nominated for governor by the 
Ohio Democrats. In all parts of the country Democratic 
committees resolved in furious protest against the dictator. 
And yet, on the whole, perhaps, the incident played into 
Lincoln's hands. At least, it silenced the Jacobins. With 
the Democrats ringing the changes on the former doctrine 
of the supple politicians, how certain that their only course 
for the moment was to lie low. A time came, to be sure, 
when they thought it safe to resume their own creed; but 
that was not yet. 

The hubbub over Vallandigham called forth two letters 
addressed to protesting committees, that have their place 
among Lincoln's most important statements of political 
science. His argument is based on the proposition which 
Browning developed a year before. The core of it is: 

"You ask in substance whether I really claim that I 
may override all guaranteed rights of individuals on the 
plea of conserving the public safety, whenever I may choose 
to say the public safety requires it. This question, divested 
of the phraseology calculated to represent me as struggling 
for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a 
question who shall decide, or an affirmation that no one 
shall decide, what the public safety does require in cases 
of rebellion or invasion. 

"The Constitution contemplates the question as likely 
to occur for decision, but it does not expressly declare who 
is to decide it. By necessary Implication, when rebellion 
or invasion comes, the decision is to be made from time to 
time; and I think the man whom, for the time, the people 
have, under the Constitution, made the Commander-in-chief 
of their amiy and navy, is the man who holds the power 
and bears the responsibility of making It. If he uses the 



3o8 LINCOLN 

power justly, the same people will probably justify him; if 
he abuses it, he is in their hands to be dealt with by all the 
modes they have reserved to themselves in the Consti- 
tution."!^ 

Browning's argument over again — the President can be 
brought to book by a plebiscite, while Congress can not. 
But Lincoln did not rest, as Browning did, on mere argu- 
ment. The old-time jury lawyer revived. He was doing 
more than arguing a theorem of political science. He was 
on trial before the people, the great mass, which he under- 
stood so well. He must reach their imaginations and touch 
their hearts. 

"Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on 
the part of the Union, and his arrest was made because he 
was laboring with some effect, to prevent the raising of 
troops, to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave 
the rebellion without an adequate military force to sup- 
press it. He was not arrested because he was damaging 
the political prospects of the Administration or the personal 
interests of the Commanding General, but because he was 
damaging the army, upon the existence and vigor of which 
the life of the nation depends. He was warring upon the 
military, and this gave the military constitutional juris- 
diction to lay hands upon him. . . . 

"I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am 
considering, to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by 
military force — ^by armies. Long experience has shown 
that armies can not be maintained unless desertion shall be 
punished by the severe penalty of death. The case re- 
quires, and the Law and the Constitution sanction this 
punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy 



DICTATOR, MARPLOT AND LITTLE MEN 309 

who deserts while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator 
who induces him to desert ?"^^ 

Again, the ironical situation of the previous December; 
the wrathful Jacobins, the most dangerous because the most 
sincere enemies of the presidential dictatorship, silent, 
trapped, biding their time. But the situation had for them 
a distinct consolation. A hundred to one it had killed the 
hope of a Lincoln-Democratic alliance. 

However, the President would not give up the Demo- 
crats without one last attempt to get round the Little Men. ■ 
Again, he could think of no mode of negotiation except 
the one he had vainly attempted with Seymour. As earnest 
of his own good faith, he would once more renounce his 
own prospect of a second term. But since Seymour had 
failed him, who was there that could serve his purpose? 
The popularity of McClellan among those Democrats who 
were not Copperheads had grown with his misfortunes. 
There had been a wide demand for his restoration after 
Fredericksburg, and again after Chancellorsville. Lincoln 
justified his reputation for political insight by concluding 
that McClellan, among the Democrats, was the coming man. 
Again Weed was called in. Again he became an ambassa- 
dor of renunciation. Apparently he carried a message to 
the effect that if McClellan would join forces with the 
Administration, Lincoln would support him for president 
a year later. But McClellan was too inveterate a partisan. 
Perhaps he thought that the future was his anyway.^^ 

And so Lincoln's persistent attempt to win over the 
Democrats came to an end. The final sealing of their an- 
tagonism was effected at a great Democratic rally in New 
York on the Fourth of July. The day previous, a mani- 



3IO LINCOLN 

festo had been circulated through the city beginning, "Free- 
men, awake! In everything, and in most stupendous pro- 
portion, is this Administration abominable!"^*' Seymour 
reaffirmed his position of out-and-out partisan hostility to 
the Administration. Vallandigham's colleague, Pendleton 
of Ohio, formulated the Democratic doctrine : that the Con- 
stitution was being violated by the President's assumption 
of war powers. His cry was, "The Constitution as it is 
and the Union as it was." He thundered that "Congress 
can not, and no one else shall, interfere with free speech." 
The question was not whether we were to have peace or 
war, but whether or not we were to have free government ; 
"if it be necessary to violate the Constitution in order to 
carry on the war, the war ought Instantly to be stopped."^^ 
Lincoln's political program had ended apparently in a 
wreck. But Fortune had not entirely deserted him. 
Hooker in a fit of irritation had offered his resignation. 
Lincoln had accepted it. Under a new commander, the 
army of the Potomac had moved against Lee. The orators 
at the Fourth of July meeting had read In the papers that 
same day Lincoln's announcement of the victory at Gettys- 
burg.^^ Almost coincident with that announcement was 
the surrender of Vicksburg. Difficult as was the political 
problem ahead of him, the problem of finding some other 
plan for unifying his support without participating in a 
Vindictive Coalition, Lincoln's mood was cheerful. On the 
seventh of July he was serenaded. Serenades for the 
President were a feature of war-time In Washington, and 
Lincoln utilized the occasions to talk informally to the 
countiy. His remarks on the seventh were not distinctive, 
except for their tone, quietly, joyfully confident. His 
serene mood displayed itself a week later in a note to Grant 



DICTATOR, MARPLOT AND LITTLE MEN 311 

which is oddly characteristic. Who else would have had 
the impulse to make this quaint little confession? But 
what, for a general who could read between the lines, could 
have been more delightful?-^ 

"My dear General : I do not remember that you and 
I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful 
acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you 
have done the country. I wish to say a word further. 
When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought 
you should do what you finally did — march the troops 
across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and 
thus go below; and I never had any faith except a general 
hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass 
expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below 
and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and the vicinity, I 
thought you should go down the river and join General 
Banks, and when you turned Northward, east of the Big 
Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the 
personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was 
wrong. 

"Very truly, 

"A. Lincoln." 



XXVII 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 



Between March and December, 1863, Congress was 
not in session. Its members were busy "taking the sense 
of the country" as they would have said : "putting their 
ears to the ground," as other people would say. A 
startling tale the ground told them. It was nothing less 
than that Lincoln was the popular hero; that the people 
believed in him ; that the politicians would do well to shape 
their ways accordingly. When they reassembled, they 
were in a sullen, disappointed frame of mind. They would 
have liked to ignore the ground's mandate; but being poli- 
ticians, they dared not. 

What an ironical turn of events ! Lincoln's well-laid 
plan for a coalition of Moderates and Democrats had come 
to nothing. Logically, he ought now to be at the mercy 
of the Republican leaders. But instead, those leaders were 
beginning to be afraid of him., were perceiving that he had 
power whereof they had not dreamed. Like Saul the son 
of Jesse, who had set out to find his father's asses, he had 
found Instead a kingdom. How had he done it? 

On a grand scale, it was the same sort of victory that "j 
had made him a power, so long before, on the little stage ) 
at Springfield. It was personal politics. His character | 
had saved him. A multitude who saw nothing in the fine 
drawn constitutional issue of the war powers, who sensed 

312 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 313 

the war in the most simple and elementary way, had 
formed, somehow, a compelling and stimulating idea of 
the President. They were satisfied that "Old Abe," or^ 
"Father Abraham," was the man for them. When, after 
one of his numerous calls for fresh troops, their hearts 
went out to him, a new song sprang to life, a ringing, 
vigorous, and yet a touching song with the refrain, "We're 
coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." 

But how has he done it, asked the bewildered poli- J 
ticians, one of another. How had he created this personal 
confidence? They, Wade, Chandler, Stevens, Davis, could 
not do it; why could he? 
i^^Well, for one thing, he was a grand reality. They, 
relatively, were shadows. The wind of destiny for him 
was the convictions arising out of his own soul; for them 
it was vox populi. The genuineness of Lincoln, his 
spirituaFreality, had been perceived early by a class of men 
whom your true politician seldom understands. The Intel- ^ 
lectuals — "them literary fellers," in the famous words of 
an American Senator — were quick to see that the President/ 
was an extraordinary man; they were not long in con- 
cluding that he was a genius. The subtlest intellect of the 
time, Hawthorne, all of whose prejudices were enlisted 
against him, said in the Atlantic of July, 1862: "He is 
evidently a man of keen faculties, and what is still more to 
the purpose, of powerful character. As to his integrity, 
the people have that intuition of it which is never deceived 
. . , he has a flexible mind capable of much expansion." 
And this when Trumbull chafed in spirit because the 
President was too "weak" for his part and Wade 
railed at him as a despot. As far back as i860, Lowell, 
destined to become one of his ablest defenders, had said 



314 LINCOLN 

that Lincoln had "proved both his abihty and his integrity; 
he . . . had experience enough in pubHc affairs to make 
him a statesman, and not enough to make him a pohtician." 
To be sure, there were some Intellectuals who could not 
see straight nor think clear. The world would have more 
confidence in the caliber of Bryant had he been able to 
rank himself in the Lincoln following. But the greater 
part of the best intelligence of the North could have sub- 
scribed to Motley's words, "My respect for the character 
of the President increases every day."^ The impression 
he made on men of original mind is shadowed in the words 
of Walt Whitman, who saw him often in the streets of 
Washington : "None of the artists or pictures have caught 
the subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. One 
of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago 
is needed!"^ 

Lincoln's popular strength lay in a combination of the 
Intellectuals and the plain people against the politicians. 
He reached the masses in three ways : through his gen- 
eral receptions which any one might attend; through the 
open-door policy of his office, to which all the world was 
permitted access; through his visits to the army. Many 
thousand men and women, in one or another of these ways, 
met the President face to face, often in the high suscepti- 
bility of intense woe, and carried away an impression which 
was immediately circulated among all their acquaintances. 

It would be impossible to exaggerate the grotesque mis- 
cellany of the stream of people flowing ever in and out of 
the President's open doors. Patriots eager to serve their 
country but who could find no place in the conventional 
requirements of the War Office; sharpers who wanted to 
inveigle him into the traps of profiteers ; widows with all 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 315 

their sons in service, pleading for one to be exempted; 
other parents struggHng with the red tape that kept them 
from sons in hospitals; luxurious frauds prating of their 
loyalty for the sake of property exemptions; inventors 
with every imaginable strange device; politicians seeking 
to cajole him; politicians bluntly threatening him; cash- 
iered officers demanding justice; men with grievances of 
a myriad sorts; nameless statesmen who sought to teach 
him his duty; clergymen in large numbers, generally with 
the same purpose; deputations from churches, societies, 
political organizations, commissions, trades unions, with 
every sort of message from flattery to denunciation ; and 
best of all, simple, confiding people who wanted only to 
say, "We trust you — God bless you !" 

There was a method in this madness of accessibility. 
Its deepest inspiration, to be sure, was kindness. In re- 
ply to a protest that he would wear himself out listening 
to thousands of requests most of which could not be 
granted, he repHed with one of those smiles in which there 
was so much sadness, "They don't want much; they get 
but little, and I must see them."^ 

But there was another inspiration. His open doors 
enabled him to study the American people, every phase of 
it, good and bad. "Men moving only in an official circle," 
said he, "are apt to become merely official — not to say arbi- 
trary — in their ideas, and are apter and apter with each 
passing day to forget that they only hold power in a 
representative capacity. . . . Many of the matters 
brought to my notice are utterly frivolous, but others are 
of more or less importance, and all serve to renew in me 
a clearer and more vivid image of that great popular as- 
semblage out of which I sprung, and to which at the end 



V 



3i6 LINCOLN 

of two years I must return. ... I call these receptions 
my public opinion baths; for I have but little time to read 
the papers, and gather public opinion that way; and though 
they may not be pleasant in all their particulars, the effect 
as a whole, is renovating and invigorating to my percep- 
tions of responsibility and duty."^ 

He did not allow his patience to be abused with evil 
intent. He read his suppliants swiftly. The profiteer, the 
shirk, the fraud of any sort, was instantly unmasked. "I'll 
have nothing to do M^th this business," he burst out after 
listening to a gentlemanly profiteer; "nor with any man 
who comes to me with such degrading propositions. What ! 
Do you take the President of the United States to be a 
commission broker? You have come to the wrong place, 
and for you and for every one who comes for the same 
purpose, there is the door."^ 

Lincoln enjoyed this indiscriminate mixing with peo- 
ple. It was his chief escape from care. He saw no reason 
why his friends should commiserate him because of the 
endless handshaking. That was a small matter compared 
with the interest he took in the ever various stream of hu- 
man types. Sometimes, indeed, he would lapse into a brown 
study in the midst of a reception. Then he "would shake 
hands with thousands of people, seemingly unconscious of 
what he was doing, murmuring monotonous salutations as 
they went by, his eye dim, his thoughts far withdrawn. . . . 
Suddenly, he would see some familiar face — his memory 
for faces was veiy good — and his eye would brighten and 
his whole form grow attentive; he would greet the visitor 
with a hearty grasp and a ringing word and dismiss him 
with a cheery laugh that filled the Blue Room with infec- 
tious good nature."^ Carpenter, the portrait painter, who 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 317 

for a time saw him daily, says that "his laugh stood by 
itself. The neigh of a wild horse on his native prairie is 
not more undisguised and hearty." An intimate friend 
called it his "life preserver."^ 

Lincoln's sense of humor delighted in anv detail of an 
( event which suggested comedy. His genial awkwardness 
amused himself quite as much as it amused the world. At 
his third public reception he wore a pair of white kid gloves 
that were too small. An old friend approached. The 
President shook hands so heartily that his glove burst with 
a popping sound. Holding up his hand, Lincoln gazed at 
the ruined glove with a droll air while the arrested proces- 
sion came to a standstill. "Well, my old friend," said he, 
"this is a general bustification ; you and I were never in- 
tended to wear these things. H they were stronger they 
might do to keep out the cold, but they are a failure to 
shake hands with between old friends like us. Stand aside, 
Captain, and I'll see you shortly."^ 

His complete freedom from pose, and from the sense 

\ of place, was glimpsed by innumerable visitors. He would 

never allow a friend to address him by a title. "Call me 

Lincoln," he would say; "i\Ir. President is entirely too 

formal for us."^ 

In a mere politician, all this might have been ques- 
tioned. But Hawthorne was right as to the people's intui- 
tion of Lincoln's honesty. He hated the parade of emi- 
nence. Jefferson was his patron saint, and "simplicity" 
was part of his creed. Nothing could induce him to sur- 
round himself with pomp, or even — as his friends thought 
— with mere security. Rumors of plots against his life 
were heard almost from the beginning. His friends begged 
long and hard before he consented to permit a cavalry 



3?S LINCOLN 

guard at the gates of the White House. Very soon he 
countermanded his consent. "It would never do," said he, 
"for a president to have guards with drawn sabers at his 
door, as if he fancied he were, or were trying to be, or 
were assuming to be, an emperor."^^ 

A military officer, alarmed for his safety, begged him 
to consider "the fact that any assassin or maniac seeking 
his life, could enter his presence without the interference 
of a single armed man to hold him back. The entrance 
doors, and all doors on the official side of the building, 
were open at all hours of the day and very late into the 
evening; and I have many times entered the mansion and 
walked up to the rooms of the two private secretaries as 
late as nine or ten o'clock at night, without seeing, or being 
challenged by a single soul." But the officer pleaded in 
vain. Lincoln laughingly paraphrased Charles II, "Now as 
to political assassination, do you think the Richmond people 
would like to have Hannibal Hamlin here any more than 
myself? . . . As to the crazy folks. Major, why I 
must only take my chances — the most crazy people at 
present, I fear, being some of my own too zealous ad- 
herents."^^ With Carpenter, to whom he seems to have 
taken a liking, he would ramble the streets of Washington, 
late at night, "without escort or even the company of a 
servant."^- Though Halleck talked him into accepting an 
escort when driving to and fro between Washington and 
his summer residence at the Soldiers' Home, he would 
frequently give it the slip and make the journey on horse-^ 
back alone. In August of 1862 on one of these solitary 
rides, his life was attempted. It was about eleven at night; 
he was "jogging along at a slow gait immersed in deep 
thought" when some one fired at him with a rifle from 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 319 

near at hand. The ball missed its aim and the President's 
horse, as Lincoln confided to his familiars, "gave proof 
of decided dissatisfaction at the racket, and with one reckless 
bound, he unceremoniously separated me from my eight- 
dollar plug hat. ... At break-neck speed we reached 
a haven of safety. Meanwhile, I was left in doubt whether 
death was more desirable from being thrown from a runa- 
way Federal horse, or as the tragic result of a rifle ball 
fired by a disloyal bushwhacker in the middle of the night." ^^ 

While carrying his life in his hands in this oddly reck- 
less way, he belied himself, as events were to show, by 
telling his friends that he fancied himself "a great coward 
physically," that he felt sure he would make a poor soldier. 
But he was sufficiently just to himself to add, ''Moral 
cowardice is something which I think I never had."^^ 

Lincoln's humor found expression in other ways be- 
sides telling stories and laughing at himself. He seized 
every opportunity to convert a petition into a joke, when 
this could be done without causing pain. One day, there 
entered a great man with a long list of favors which he 
hoped to have granted. Among these was "the case of 
Betsy Ann Dougherty, a good woman," said the great man. 
"She lived in my county and did my washing for a long 
time. Her husband went off and joined the Rebel army and 
I wish you would give her a protection paper." The 
pompous gravity of the way the case was presented struck 
Lincoln as very funny. His visitor had no humor. He 
failed toi see jokes while Lincoln quizzed him as to who 
and what was Betsy Ann. At length the President wrote 
a fine on a card and handed it to the great man. "Tell 
Betsy Ann to put a string in this card and hang it round 
her neck," said he. "When the officers (who may have 



320 LINCOLN 

doubted her affiliations) see this they will keep their hands 
off your Betsy Ann." On the card was written, "Let Betsy 
Ann Dougherty alone as long as she behaves herself. A. 
Lincoln."^^ 

This eagerness for a joke now and then gave offense. 
On one occasion, a noted Congressman called on the Presi- 
dent shortly after a disaster. Lincoln began to tell a story. 
The Congressman jumped up. "Mr. President, I did not 
come here this morning to hear stories. It is too serious 
a time." Lincoln's face changed. "Ashley," said he, "sit 
down! I respect you as an earnest, sincere man. You 
can not be more anxious than I have been constantly since 
the beginning of the war; and I say to you now, that were 
it not for this occasional vent, I should die."^*^ Again he 
said, "When the Peninsula Campaign terminated suddenly 
at Harrison's Landing, I was as near inconsolable as I 
could be and hve."^^ 

Lincoln's imaginative power, the ineradicable artist in 
him, made of things unseen true realities to his sensibility. 
Reports of army suffering bowed his spirit. "This was 
especially the case when the noble victims were of his own 
acquaintance, or of the narrower circle of his familiar 
friends; and then he seemed for the moment possessed of 
a sense of personal responsibility for their individual fate 
which was at once most unreasonable and most pitiful." 
On hearing that two sons of an old friend were desperately 
wounded and would probably die, he broke out with : "Here, 
now, are these dear brave boys killed in this cursed war. 
My God ! My God ! It is too bad ! They worked hard 
to earn money to educate themselves and this is the end ! 
I loved them as if they were my own."^^ 

He was one of the few who have ever written a beautiful 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 321 

letter of condolence. Several of his letters attempting this 
all but impossible task, come as near their mark as such 
things can. One has become a classic : 

"I have been shown," he wrote to Mrs. Bixby, "in the 
files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant- 
General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five 
sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I 
feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine 
which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a 
loss so overwhelming. But I can not refrain from tender- 
ing to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks 
of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our 
heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereave- 
ment, and leave you only the cherished memory of the 
loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours 
to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of 
freedom."^ ^ 

All these innumerable instances of his sympathy passed 
from mouth to mouth ; became part of a floating propaganda 
that was organizing the people in his support. To these 
were added many anecdotes of his mercy. The American 
people had not learned that war is a rigorous thing. Disci- 
pline in the army was often hard to maintain. Impulsive 
young men who tired of army life, or who quarreled with 
their officers, sometimes walked away. There were many 
condemnations either for mutiny or desertion. In the 
stream of suppliants pouring daily through the President's 
office, many were parents imploring mercy for rash sons. 
As every death-warrant had to be signed by the President, 
his generals were frequently enraged by his refusal to carry 
out their decisions. "General," said he to an angry com- 
mander who charged him with destroying discipline, "there 



322 LINCOLN 

are too many weeping widows in the United States now. 
For God's sake don't ask me to add to the number; for 
I tell you plainly I won't do it."^^ 

Here again, kindness was blended with statecraft, mercy 
with shrewdness. The generals could not grasp the political 
side of war. Lincoln tried to make them see it. When 
they could not, he quietly in the last resort counteracted 
their influence. When some of them talked of European 
experience, he shook his head; it would not do; they must 
work with the tools they had; first of all with an untrained 
people, intensely sensitive to the value of human life, im- 
pulsive, quick to forget offenses, ultra-considerate of youth 
and its rashness. Whatever else the President did, he must 
not allow the country to think of the army as an ogre de- 
vouring its sons because of technicalities. The General saw 
only the discipline, the morale, of the soldiers; the Presi- 
dent saw the far more difficult, the more roundabout mat- 
ter, the discipline and the morale of the citizens. The one 
believed that he could compel ; the other with his finger on 
the nation's pulse, knew that he had to persuade. 

However, this flowing army of the propaganda did not 
always engage him on the tragic note. One day a large 
fleshy man, of a stern but homely countenance and a solemn 
and dignified carriage, immaculate dress — "swallow-tailed 
coat, ruffled shirt of faultless fabric, white cravat and 
orange-colored gloves" — entered with the throng. Looking 
at him Lincoln was somewhat appalled. He expected some 
formidable demand. To his relief, the imposing stranger 
delivered a brief harangue on the President's policy, closing 
with, *T have watched you narrowly ever since your inau- 
guration. ... As one of your constituents, I now say 
to you, do in future as you damn please, and I will support 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 323 

you." "Sit down, my friend," said Lincoln, "sit down. 
I am delighted to see you. Lunch with us to-day. Yes, 
you must stay and lunch with us, my friend, for I have not 
seen enough of you yet."^^ There were many of these in- 
formal ambassadors of the people assuring the President 
of popular support. And this florid gentleman was not 
the only one who lunched with the President on first ac- 
quaintance. 

This casual way of inviting strangers to lunch with 
him was typical of his mode of life, which was exceedingly 
simple. He slept lightly and rose early. In summer when 
he used the Soldiers' Home as a residence, he was at his 
desk in the White House at eight o'clock in the morning. 
His breakfast was an egg and a cup of coffee ; luncheon 
was rarely more than a glass of milk and a biscuit with a 
plate of fruit in season ; his dinner at six o'clock, was always 
a light meal. Though he had not continued a total abstainer, 
as in the early days at Springfield, he very seldom drank 
wine. He never used tobacco. So careless was he with 
regard to food that when Mrs. Lincoln was away from 
home, there was little regularity in his meals. He described 
his habits on such occasions as "browsing around."^^ 

Even when Mrs. Lincoln was in command at the White 
House, he was not invariably dutiful. An amusing instance 
was observed by some high officials. The luncheon hour 
arrived in the midst of an important conference. Presently, 
a servant appeared reminding Mr. Lincoln of the hour, but 
he took no notice. Another summons, and again no notice. 
After a short interval, the door of the office flew open and 
the titular "First Lady" flounced into the room, a ruffled, 
angry little figure, her eyes flashing. With deliberate quiet, 
as if in a dream, Lincoln rose slowly, took her calmly, 



324 LINCOLN 

firmly by the shoulders, lifted her, carried her through the 
doorway, set her down, closed the door, and went on with 
the conference as if unconscious of an interruption.-^ Mrs. 
Lincoln did not return. The remainder of the incident is 
unknown. 

The burden of many anecdotes that were included in 
the propaganda was his kindness to children. It began 
with his own. His little rascal "Tad," after Willie's death, 
was the apple of his eye. The boy romped in and out of 
his office. Many a time he was perched on his father's 
knee while great affairs of state were under discussion.^* 
Lincoln could persuade any child from the arms of its 
mother, nurse, or playfellow, there being a "peculiar fasci- 
nation in his voice and manner which the little one could 
not resist. "^^ 

All impressionable, imaginative young people, brought 
into close association with him, appear to have felt his spell. 
His private secretaries were his sworn henchmen. Hay's 
diary rings with admiration — the keen, discriminating, sig- 
nificant admiration of your real observer. Hay refers to 
him by pet names— "The Ancient," "The Old Man," "The 
Tycoon." Lincoln's entire relation with these gifted 
youngsters may be typified by one of Hay's quaintest anec- 
dotes. Lincoln had gone to bed, as so often he did, with 
a book. "A little after midnight as I was' writing . . . 
the President came into the office laughing, with a volume 
of Hood's Works in his hand, to show Nicolay and me the 
little caricature, *An Unfortunate Bee-ing' ; seemingly ut- 
terly unconscious that he, with his short shirt hanging about 
his long legs, and setting out behind like the tail feathers 
of an enormous ostrich, was infinitely funnier than any- 
thing in the book he was laughing at. What a man it is! 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 325 

Occupied all day with matters of vast moment, deeply 
anxious about the fate of the greatest army of the world, 
with his own plans and future hanging on the events of 
the passing hour, he yet has such a wealth of simple bon 
hommie and good fellowship that he gets out of bed and 
perambulates the house in his shirt to find us that we may 
share with him the fun of poor Hood's queer little con- 
ceits."-« 

In midsummer, 1863, "The Tycoon is in fine whack. I 
have rarely seen him more serene and busy. He is manag- 
ing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a 
reconstruction of the Union, all at once. I never knew 
with what a tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet, until 
now. The most important things he decides and there is 
no cavil. I am growing more convinced that the good of 
the country demands that he should be kept where he is 
till this thing is over. There is no man in the country so 
wise, so gentle, and so firm."-" 

And again, "You may talk as you please of the Aboli- 
tion Cabal directing affairs from Washington; some well- 
meaning newspapers advise the President to keep his fingers 
out of the military pie, and all that sort of thing. The 
truth is, if he did, the pie would be a sorry mess. The 
old man sits here and wields, like a backwoods Jupiter, the 
bolts of war and the machinery of government with a hand 
especially steady and equally firm. ... I do not know 
whether the nation is worthy of him for another term. 
I know the people want him. There is no mistaking that 
fact. But the politicians are strong yet, and he is not their 
'kind of a cat.' I hope God won't see fit to scourge us for 
our sins by any of the two or three most prominent candi- 
dates on the ground."^^ 



Z26 LINCOLN 

This was the conclusion growing everywhere among 
the bulk of the people. There is one more cause of it to be 
reckoned with. Lincoln had not ceased to be the literary 
statesman. In fact, he was that more effectively than ever. 
His genius for fable-making took a new turn. Many a 
visitor who came to find fault, went home to disseminate 
the apt fable with which the President had silenced his ob- 
jections and captured his agreement. His skill in narration 
also served him well. Carpenter repeats a story about An- 
drew Johnson and his crude but stern religion which in 
mere print is not remarkable. *T have elsewhere intimated," 
comments Carpenter, "that Mr. Lincoln was capable of 
much dramatic power. ... It was shown in his keen 
appreciation of Shakespeare, and unrivaled faculty of story- 
telling. The incident just related, for example, was given 
with a thrilling effect which mentally placed Johnson, for 
the time being, alongside Luther and Cromwell. Profanity 
or irreverence was lost sight of in a fervid utterance of a 
highly wrought and great-souled determination, united with 
a rare exhibition of pathos and self-abnegation. "^^ 

In formal literature, he had done great things upon a 
far higher level than any of his writings previous to that 
sudden change in his style in i860. For one, there was the 
Fast Day Proclamation. There was also a description of 
his country, of the heritage of the nation, in the third mes- 
sage. Its aim was to give imaginative reality to the national 
idea; just as the second message had aimed to give argu- 
mentative reality. 

"There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a 
national boundary upon which to divide. Trace through 
from east to west, upon the line between the free and the 
slave country and we shall find a little more than one-third 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 327 

of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated, 
or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides ; while 
nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, 
over which people may walk back and forth without any 
consciousness of their presence. No part of this line can 
be made any more difficult to pass by writing it down on 
paper or parchment as a national boundary. . . . 

"But there is another difficulty. The great interior 
region, bounded east by the Alleghanies, north by the 
British dominions, west by the Rocky Mountains, and south 
by the line along which the culture of corn and cotton 
meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of Tennes- 
see, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, 
Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Terri- 
tories of Dakota, Nebraska, and part of Colorado, already 
has above ten millions of people, and will have fifty mil- 
lions within fifty years, if not prevented by any political 
folly or mistake. It contains more tlian one-third of the 
country owned by the United States — certainly more than 
one million square miles. Once half as populous as Massa- 
chusetts already is, it would have more than seventy-five mil- 
lions of people. A glance at the map shows that, territori- 
ally speaking, it is the great body of the republic. The other 
parts are but marginal borders to it, the magnificent region 
sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific being 
the deepest and also the richest in undeveloped resources. 
In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all 
which proceed from them, this great interior region is 
naturally one of the most important in the world. Ascer- 
tain from the statistics the small proportion of the region 
which has, as yet, been brought into cultivation, and also 
the large and rapidly increasing amount of its products, 



328 LINCOLN 

and we shall be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the 
prospect presented; and yet, this region has no seacoast, 
touches no ocean anywhere. As part of one nation, its 
people now find, and may forever find, their way to Europe 
by New York, to South America and Africa by New 
Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. But separate our 
common country into two nations as designed by the present 
rebellion, and every man of this great interior region is 
thereby cut off from some one or more of these outlets — 
not, perhaps, by a physical barrier, but by embarrassing 
and onerous trade regulations. 

"And this is true wherever a dividing or boundary line 
may be fixed. Place it between the now free and slave 
country, or place it south of Kentucky or north of Ohio, 
and still the truth remains that none south of it can trade 
to any port or place north of it, and none north of it can 
trade to any port or place south of it, except upon terms 
dictated by a government foreign to them. These outlets 
east, west, and south, are indispensable to the well-being of 
the people inhabiting and to inhabit, this vast interior 
region. Which of the three may be the best is no proper 
question. All are better than either; and all of right be- 
long to that people and to their successors forever. True 
to themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation 
shall be, but will vow rather that there shall be no such 
line. Nor are the marginal regions less interested in these 
communications to and through them to the great outside 
world. They, too, and each of them, must have access to 
this Egypt of the West without paying toll at the crossing 
of any national boundary. 

"Our national strife springs not from our permanent 
part, not from the land we inhabit, not from our national 



THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE 329 

homestead. There is no possible severing of this but 
would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among us. In all 
its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors 
separation. In fact, it would ere long, force reunion, how- 
ever much of blood and treasure the separation might have 
cost."^^ 

A third time he made a great literary stroke, gave ut- 
terance, in yet another form, to his faith that the national 
idea was the one constant issue for which he had asked his 
countrymen, and would continue to ask them, to die. It was 
at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, in consecration of a 
military burying-ground, that he delivered, perhaps, his 
greatest utterance: 

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can 
not consecrate — w^e can not hallow — this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have 
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. 
The world will little note nor long remember what we say 
here, but It can never forget what they did here. It is for 
us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished 
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly 
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the 
great task remaining before us — that from these honored 
dead we take Increased devotion to that cause for which 
they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; 
that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of free- 
dom; and that government of the people, for the people, 
by the people, shall not perish from the earth."^^ 



XXVIII 



APPARENT ASCENDENCY 



Toward the end of 1863. Lowell prepared an essay on 
"The President's Policy." It might almost be regarded as 
a manifesto of the Intellectuals. That there was now a 
prospect of winning the war ''was mainly due to the good 
sense, the good humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, 
and the unselfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind 
fortune, as it seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the 
most dangerous and difficult eminence of modern times." 
When the essay appeared in print, Lincoln was greatly 
pleased. He wrote to the editors of the North American 
Reznezv, "I am not the most impartial judge; yet with due 
allowance for this, I venture to hope that the article entitled 
'The President's Policy' will be of value to the country. I 
fear I am not quite worthy of all which is therein so kindly 
said of me personally."^ 

This very able defense of his previous course appeared 
as he was announcing to the country his final course. He 
was now satisfied that winning the war was but a question 
of time. What would come after war was now in his mind 
the overshadowing matter. He knew that the Vindictive 
temper had lost nothing of its violence. Chandler's savagery 
— his belief that the Southerners had forfeited the right to 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — was still the Vin- 
dictive creed. Vae z'ictis! Wlien war ended, they meant 
to set their feet on the neck of the vanquished foe. Further- 

330 



APPARENT ASCENDENCY 331 

more, Lincoln was not deceived as to why they were lying 
low at this particular minute. Ears had been flattened to 
the ground and they were heeding what the ground had 
said. The President was too popular for them to risk at- 
tacking him without an obvious issue. Their former issue 
had been securely appropriated by the Democrats. Where 
could they find another? With consummate boldness Lin- 
coln presented them an issue. It was reconstruction. 
When Congress met, he communicated the text of a 
"Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. "^ This 
great document on which all his concluding policy was 
based, offered "a full pardon" with "restoration of all 
rights of property, except as to slaves, or in property cases, 
where rights of third persons shall have intervened" upon 
subscribing to an oath of allegiance which required only a 
full acceptance of the authority of the United States. This 
amnesty was to be extended to all persons except a few 
groups, such as officers above the rank of colonel and 
former officials of the United States. The Proclamation 
also provided that whenever, in any Seceded State, the new 
oath should be taken by ten per cent, of all those who were 
qualified to vote under the laws of i860, these ten per cent, 
should be empowered to set up a new State government. 

From the Vindictive point of view, here was a startling 
announcement. Lincoln had declared for a degree of 
magnanimity that was as a red rag to a bull. He had also 
carried to its ultimate his assumption of war powers. No 
request was made for congressional cooperation. The mes- 
sage which the Proclamation accompanied was informative 
only. 

By this time, the Vindictive Coalition of 1861 was 
gradually coming together again. Or, more truly, perhaps, 



332 LINCOLN 

various of its elements were fusing into a sort of descend- 
ant of the old coalition. The leaders of the new Vindictive 
group were much the same as the leaders of the earlier 
group. There was one conspicuous addition. During the 
next six months, Henr}' Winter Davis held for a time the 
questionable distinction of being Lincoln's most inveterate 
enemy. He was a member of the House. In the House 
many young and headstrong politicians rallied about him. 
The Democrats at times craftily followed his lead. Despite 
the older and more astute Vindictives of the Senate, 
Chandler, Wade and the rest who knew that their time had 
not come, Davis, with his ardent followers, took up the 
President's challenge. Davis brought in a bill designed to 
complete the reorganization of the old Vindictive Coalition. 
It appealed to the enemies of presidential prerogative, to 
all those who wanted the road to reconstruction made as 
hard as possible, and to the Abolitionists. This bill, in so 
many words, transferred the whole matter of reconstruc- 
tion from the President to Congress; it required a majority 
(instead of one-tenth) of all the male citizens of a Seceded 
State as the basis of a new government; it exacted of this 
majority a pledge never to pay any State debt contracted 
during the Confederacy, and also the perpetual prohibition 
of slavery in their State constitution. 

Davis got his bill through the House, but his allies in 
the Senate laid it aside. They understood the country too 
well not to see that they must wait for something to happen. 
If the President made any mistake, if anything went wrong 
with the army — they remembered the spring of 1862, Mc- 
Clellan's failure, and how Chandler followed it up. And 
at this moment no man was chafing more angrily because 
of what the ground was saying, no man was watching the 



APPARENT ASCENDENCY 333 

President more keenly, than Chandler. History is said to 
repeat itself, and all things are supposed to come to him 
who waits. While Davis's bill was before the House, Lin- 
coln accepted battle with the Vindictives in a way that was 
entirely unostentatious, but that burned his bridges. He 
pressed for\Aard the organization of a new State government 
in Louisiana under Federal auspices. He wrote to Michael 
Hahn, the newly chosen governor of this somewhat ficti- 
tious State : "I congratulate you on having fixed your 
name in history as the first Free State governor of Louisi- 
ana."3 

]\Ieanwhile, the hotheads of the House again followed 
Davis's lead and flung defiance in Lincoln's face. Napoleon, 
who had all along coquetted alarmingly with the Confed- 
erates, had also pushed ahead with his insolent conquest of 
Mexico. Lincoln and Seward, determined to have but one 
war on their hands at a time, had skilfully evaded com- 
mitting themselves. The United States had neither pro- 
tested against the action of Napoleon, nor in any way ad- 
mitted its propriety. Other men besides the Vindictives 
were biding their time. But here the hotheads thought 
they saw an opportunity. Davis brought in a resolution 
which amounted to a censure of the Administration for not 
demanding the retirement of the French from Mexico. 
This was one of those times when the Democrats played 
politics and followed Davis. The motion was carried 
unanimously.* It was so much of a sensation that the 
American Minister at Paris, calling on the Imperial Min- 
ister of Foreign Affairs, was met by the curt question, "Do 
you bring peace or war?" 

But it was not in the power of the House to draw Lin- 
coln's fire until he chose to be drawn. He ignored its 



334 LINCOLN 

action. The Imperial Government was informed that the 
acts of the House of Representatives were not the acts of 
the President, and that in relation to F'rance, if the Presi- 
dent should change his policy, the Imperial Government 
would be duly informed.^ 

It was Lincoln's fate to see his policy once again at the 
mercy of his Commanding General. That was his situation 
in the spring of 1862 when everything hung on IMcClellan 
who failed him; again in the autumn of the year when 
McClellan so narrowly saved him. The spring of 1864 
paralleled, in this respect, that other spring two years 
earlier. To be sure, Lincoln's position w'as now much 
stronger; he had a great personal following on which he 
relied. But just how strong it was he did not know. He 
was taking a great risk forcing a policy high-handed in 
defiance of Congress, where all his bitterest enemies were 
entrenched, glowering. If his General failed him now — 

The man on whom this huge responsibility rested was 
Grant. Lincoln had summoned him from the West and 
placed him at the head of all the armies of the Republic. 
As to Halleck who had long since proved himself perfectly 
useless, he was allowed to lapse into obscurity. 

Grant has preserved in his Memoirs his first confidential 
talk with Lincoln : "He told me he did not want to know 
what I proposed to do. But he submitted a plan of cam- 
paign of his own that he wanted me to hear and then do 
as I pleased about. He brought out a map of Virginia on 
which he had evidently marked every position occupied by 
the Federal and Confederate armies up to that time. He 
pointed out on the map two streams which empty into the 
Potomac, and suggested that an army might be moved on 
boats and landed between the mouths of those streams. We 



APPARENT ASCENDENCY 335 

would then have the Potomac to bring our supplies, and 
the tributaries would protect our flanks while we moved 
out. I listened respectfully, but did not suggest that the 
same streams would protect Lee's flanks while he was 
shutting us up."^ 

Grant set out for the front in Virginia. Lincoln's part- 
ing words were this note : "Not expecting to see you again 
before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this 
way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to 
this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of 
your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are 
vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not 
to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While 
I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our 
men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points 
are less likely to escape your attention than they would be 
mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my 
power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, 
with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you."^ 



XXIX 



CATASTROPHE 



If the politicians needed a definite warning, in addition 
to what the ground was saying, it was given by an incident 
that centered upon Chase. A few bold men whose sense 
of the crowd was not so acute as it might have been, at- 
tempted to work up a Chase boom. At the instance of 
Senator Pbmero}'-, a secret paper known to-day as the Pom- 
eroy Circular, was started on its travels. The Circular 
aimed to make Chase the Vindictive candidate. Like all 
the other anti-Lincoln moves of the early part of 1864, it 
was premature. The shrewd old Senators who were 
silently marshaling the Vindictive forces, let it alone. 

Chase's ambition was fully understood at the White 
House. During the previous year, his irritable self -con- 
sciousness had led to quarrels with the President, generally 
over patronage, and more than once he had offered his 
resignation. On one occasion, Lincoln went to his house 
and begged him to reconsider. Alone among the Cabinet, 
Chase had failed to take the measure of Lincoln and still 
considered him a second-rate person, much his inferior. He 
rated very high the services to his country of the Secretary 
of the Treasury whom he considered the logical successor 
to the Presidency. 

Lincoln refused to see what Chase was after. "I have 
determined," he told Hay, "to shut my eyes as far as pos- 
sible to everything of the sort. Mr. Chase makes a good 

336 



CATASTROPHE 337 

secretary and I shall keep him where he is."* In lighter 
vein, he said that Chase's presidential ambition was like a 
"chin fly'' pestering a horse ; it led to his putting all the 
energy he had into his work.^ 

When a copy of the Circular found its way to the White 
House, Lincoln refused to read \t.^ Soon afterward it fell 
into the hands of an unsympathetic or indiscreet editor and 
was printed. There was a hubbub. Chase offered to re- 
sign. Lincoln wrote to him in reply: 

"My knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy's letter having been 
made public came to me only the day you wrote but I had, 
in spite of myself, known of its existence several days 
before. I have not yet read it, and I think I shall not. I 
was not shocked or surprised by the appearance of the letter 
because I had had knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy's committee, 
and of secret issues which I supposed came from it, and of 
secret agents who I supposed w^re sent out by it, for 
several weeks. I have known just as little of these things 
as my friends have allowed me to know. They bring the 
documents to me, but I do not read them; they tell me 
what they think fit to tell me, but I do not inquire for 
more. I fully concur with you that neither of us can be 
justly held responsible for what our respective friends may 
do without our instigation or countenance; and I assure 
you, as you have assured me, that no assault has been made 
upon you by my instigation or with my countenance. 
Whether you shall remain at the head of the Treasury De- 
partment is a question which I will not allow myself to 
consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of 
the public service, and in that view, I do not perceive oc- 
casion for a change."^ 

But this was not the end of the incident. The country 



338 LINCOLN 

promptly repudiated Chase, His own state led the way. 
A caucus of Union members of the Ohio Legislature re- 
solved that the people and the soldiers of Ohio demanded 
the reelection of Lincoln. In a host of similar resolutions, 
Legislative caucuses, political conventions, clubs, societies, 
prominent individuals not in the political machine, all ring- 
ingly declared for Lincoln, the one proper candidate of the 
"Union party" — as the movement was labeled in a last and 
relatively successful attempt to break party lines. 

As the date of the "Union Convention" approached, 
Lincoln put aside an opportunity to gratify the Vindictives. 
Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the recruiting 
offices had been opened to negroes. Thereupon the Con- 
federate government threatened to treat black soldiers as 
brigands, and to refuse to their white officers the protection 
of the laws of war. A cry went up in the North for re- 
prisal. It was not the first time the cry had been raised. 
In 1862 Lincoln's spokesman in Congress, Browning, had 
withstood a proposal for the trial of General Buckner by 
the civil authorities of Kentucky. Browning opposed such 
a course on the ground that it would lead to a policy of 
retaliation, and make of the war a gratification of revenge.'^ 
The Confederate threat gave a new turn to the discussion. 
Frederick Douglas, the most influential negro of the time, 
obtained an audience with Lincoln and begged for reprisals. 
Lincoln would not consent. So effective was his argument 
that even the ardent negro, convinced that his race was 
about to suffer persecution, was satisfied. 

'T shall never forget," Douglas wrote, "the benignant 
expression of his face, the tearful look of his eye, the 
quiver in his voice, when he deprecated a resort to retalia- 
tory measures. 'Once begun,' said he, T do not know 



CATASTROPHE 339 

where such a measure would stop.' He said he could not 
take men out and kill them in cold blood for what was 
done by others. If he could get hold of the persons who 
were guilty of killing the colored prisoners in cold blood, 
the case would be different, but he could not kill the inno- 
cent for the guilty."^ 

In April, 1864, the North was swept by a wild rumor 
of deliberate massacre of prisoners at Fort Pillow. Here 
was an opportunity for Lincoln to ingratiate himself with 
the Vindictives. The President was to make a speech at a 
fair held in Baltimore, for the benefit of the Sanitary Com- 
mission. The audience was keen to hear him denounce the 
reputed massacre, and eager to applaud a promise of re- 
prisal. Instead, he deprecated hasty judgment; insisting 
that the rumor had not been verified ; that nothing should be 
done on the strength of mere report. 

"It is a mistake to suppose the government is indifferent 
in this matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to 
it. We do not to-day know that a colored soldier or white 
officer commanding colored soldiers has been massacred 
by the Rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it — believe 
it, I may say — but we do not know it. To take the life of 
one of their prisoners on the assumption that they murder 
ours, when it is short of certainty that they do murder 
ours, might be too serious, too cruel a mistake."^ 

What a tame, spiritless position in the eyes of the Vin- 
dictives! A different opportunity to lay hold of public 
opinion he made the most of. And yet, here also, he spoke 
in that carefully guarded way, making sure he was not 
understood to say more than he meant, which most poli- 
ticians would have pronounced over-scrupulous. A depu- 
tation of working men from New York were received at the 



340 LINCOLN 

White House. "The honorary membership in your asso- 
ciation," said he, "as generously tendered, is gratefully ac- 
cepted. . . . You comprehend, as your address shows, 
that the existing rebellion means more, and tends to more, 
than the perpetuation of African slavery — that it is, in fact, 
a war upon the rights of all working people." 

After reviewing his own argument on this subject in 
the second message, he concluded : 

"The views then expressed now remain unchanged, nor 
have I much to add. None are so deeply interested to 
resist the present rebellion as the working people. Let 
them beware of prejudices, working division and hostility 
among themselves. The most notable feature of a dis- 
turbance in your city last summer was the hanging of some 
working people by other working people. It should never 
be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy outside of 
the family relation, should be one uniting all working 
people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds. Nor 
should this lead to a war upon property, or the owners of 
property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is de- 
sirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should 
be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is 
just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not 
him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but 
let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by 
example assuming that his own shall be safe from violence 
when built."^ 

Lincoln was never more anxious than in this fateful 
spring when so many issues were hanging in the balance. 
Nevertheless, in all his relations with the world, his firm 
serenity was not broken. Though subject to depression so 
deep that his associates could not penetrate it, he kept it 



CATASTROPHE 341 

sternly to himself.^ He showed the world a lighter, more 
graceful aspect than ever before. A precious record of his 
later mood is the account of him set down by Frank B. 
Carpenter, the portrait painter, a man of note in his day, 
who was an inmate of the White House during the first half 
of 1864. Carpenter was painting a picture of the "Signing 
of the Emancipation Proclamation." He saw Lincoln in- 
formally at all sorts of odd times, under all sorts of condi- 
tions. ''All familiar with him," says Carpenter, "will re- 
member the weary air which became habitual during his last 
years. This was more of the mind than of the body, and 
no rest and recreation which he allowed himself could re- 
lieve it. As he sometimes expressed it, 'no remedy seemed 
ever to reach the tired spot.' "^^ 

A great shadow was darkening over him. He was 
more than ever convinced that he had not long to live. 
None the less, his poise became more conspicuous, his com- 
mand over himself and others more distinguished, as the 
months raced past. In truth he had worked through a slow 
but profound transformation. The Lincoln of 1864 was 
so far removed from the Lincoln of Pigeon Creek — but 
logically, naturally removed, through the absorption of the 
outer man by the inner — that inevitably one thinks of 
Shakespeare's — 

"... change 
Into something rich and strange." 

Along with the weakness, the contradictions of his 
earlier self, there had also fallen away from him the mere 
grossness that had belonged to him as a peasant. Car- 
penter is unconditional that in six months of close intimacy, 
seeing him in company with all sorts of people, he never 



342 LINCOLN 

heard from Lincoln an offensive story. He quotes Seward 
and Lincoln's family physician to the same effect. ^^ 

The painter, like many others, was impressed by the 
tragic cast of his expression, despite the surface mirth. 
"His complexion, at this time, was inclined to sallowness 
. . . his eyes were bluish gray in color — always in deep 
shadow, however, from the upper lids which were unusually 
heavy (reminding me in this respect of Stuart's portrait of 
Washington) and the expression was remarkably pensive 
and tender, often inexpressibly sad, as if the reservoir of 
tears lay very near the surface — a. fact proved not only by 
the response which accounts of suffering and sorrow in- 
variably drew forth, but by circumstances which would 
ordinarily affect few men in his position. "^^ As a result 
of the great strain to which he was subjected "his demeanor 
and disposition changed — so gradually that it would be im- 
possible to say when the change began. , . . He con- 
tinued always the same kindly, genial, and cordial spirit he 
had been at first; but the boisterous laughter became less 
frequent, year by year; the eye grew veiled by constant 
meditation on momentous subjects; the air of reserve and 
detachment from his surroundings increased. He aged 
with great rapidity."^^ 

Every Saturday afternoon the Marine Band gave an 
open-air concert in the grounds of the White House. One 
afternoon Lincoln appeared upon the portico. There was 
instant applause and cries for a speech. "Bowing his 
thanks and excusing himself, he stepped back into the re- 
tirement of the circular parlor, remarking (to Carpenter) 
with a disappointed air, as he reclined on a sofa, T wish 
they would let me sit there quietly and enjoy the music' " 
His kindness to others was unfailing. It was this harassed 



CATASTROPHE 



343 



statesman who "came into the studio one day and found 
(Carpenter's) little boy of two summers playing on the 
floor. A member of the Cabinet was with him ; but laying 
aside all restraint, he took the little fellow in his arms and 
they were soon on the best of terms." While his younger 
son "Tad" was with his mother on a journey, Lincoln tele- 
graphed : "Tell Tad, father and the goats are well, especi- 
ally the goats."^* He found time one bright morning in 
May to review the Sunday-school children of Washington 
who filed past "cheering as if their very lives depended 
upon it," while Lincoln stood at a window "enjoying the 
scene . . . making pleasant remarks about a face that 
now and then struck him,"^^ Carpenter told him that no 
other president except Washington had placed himself so 
securely in the hearts of the people. "Homely, honest, 
ungainly Lincoln," said Asa Gray, in a letter to Darwin, "is 
the representative man of the country." 
I However, two groups of men in his own party were 
sullenly opposed to him — the relentless Vindictives and cer- 
tain irresponsible free lances who named themselves the 
/'Radical Democracy." In the latter group, Fremont was 
the hero; Wendell Phillips, the greatest advocate. They 
were extremists in all things; many of them Agnostics. 
Furious against Lincoln, but unwilling to go along with 
the waiting policy of the Vindictives, these visionaries held 
a convention at Cleveland; voted down a resolution that 
recognized God as an ally ; and nominated Fremont for the 
Presidency. A witty comment on the movement — one that 
greatly amused Lincoln — was the citation of a verse in first 
Samuel : "And every one that was in distress, and every 
one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, 
gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain 



344 LINCOLN 

over them; and there were with him about four hundred 
men." 

If anything was needed to keep the dissatisfied Senators 
in the party ranks, it was this rash "bolt." Though Fre- 
mont had been their man in the past, he had thrown the fat 
in the fire by setting up an independent ticket. Silently, 
the wise opportunists of the Senate and all their henchmen, 
stood aside at the "Union convention" — which they called 
the Republican Convention — June seventh, and took their 
medicine. 

There was no doubt of the tempest of enthusiasm among 
the majority of the delegates. It was a Lincoln ovation. 

In responding the next day to a committee of congratu- 
lation, Lincoln said : "I am not insensible at all to the per- 
sonal compliment there is in this, and yet I do not allow 
myself to believe that any but a small portion of it is to be 
appropriated as a personal compliment. ... I do not 
allow myself to suppose that either the Convention or the 
[National Union] League have concluded to decide that I 
am the greatest or best man in America, but rather they 
have concluded that it is best not to swap horses while cross- 
ing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so 
poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it trying 
to swap."^^ 

Carpenter records another sort of congratulation a few 
days later that brought out the graceful side of this man 
whom most people still supposed to be hopelessly awkward. 
It happened on a Saturday. Carpenter had invited friends 
to sit in his painting room and oversee the crowd while 
listening to the music. "Towards the close of the concert, 
the door suddenly opened, and the President came in, as he 
was in the habit of doing, alone. Mr. and Mrs. Cropsey 



CATASTROPHE 345 

had been presented to him in the course of the morning; 
and as he came forward, half hesitatingly, Mrs. C, who 
held a bunch of beautiful flowers in her hand, tripped for- 
ward playfully, and said : 'Allow me, Mr, President, to 
present you with a bouquet!' The situation M^as momen- 
tarily embarrassing; and I was puzzled to know how 'His 
Excellency' would get out of it. With no appearance of 
discomposure, he stooped down, took the flowers, and, look- 
ing from them into the sparkling eyes and radiant face of 
the lady, said, with a gallantry I was unprepared for — ■ 
'Really, madam, if you give them to me, and they are mine, 
I think I can not possibly make so good use of them as to 
present them to you, in return!' "^^ 

In gaining the nomination, Lincoln had not, as yet, at- 
tained security for his plans. Grant was still to be reck- 
oned with. By a curious irony, the significance of his 
struggle with Lee during May, his steady advance by the 
left flank, had been misapprehended in the North. Look- 
ing at the map, the country saw that he was pushing south- 
ward, and again southward, on Virginia soil. McClellan, 
Pope, Burnside, Hooker, with them it had been : 

"He who fights and runs away 
May live to fight another day." 

But Grant kept on. He struck Lee in the furious battle of 
the Wilderness, and moved to the left, farther south. "Vic- 
tory !" cried the Northern newspapers, "Lee isn't able to 
stop him." The same delusion was repeated after Spottsyl- 
vania where the soldiers, knowing more of war than did the 
newspapers, pinned to their coats slips of paper bearing 
their names; identification of the bodies might be diflicult. 
The popular mistake continued throughout that dreadful 



346 LINCOLN 

campaign. The Convention was still under the delusion of 
victory. 

Lincoln also appears to have stood firm until the last 
minute in the common error. But the report of Grant's 
losses, more than the whole of Lee's army, filled him with 
horror. During these days, Carpenter had complete free- 
dom of the President's office and "intently studied every 
line and shade of expression in that furrowed face. In 
repose, it was the saddest face I ever knew. There were 
days when I could scarcely look into it without crying. 
During the first week of the battles of the Wilderness he 
scarcely slept at all. Passing through the main hall of the 
domestic apartment on one of these days, I met him, clad in 
a long, morning wrapper, pacing back and forth a narrow 
passage leading to one of the windows, his hands behind 
him, great black rings under his eyes, his head bent for- 
ward upon his breast — altogether such a picture of the 
effects of sorrow, care, and anxiety as would have melted 
the hearts of the worst of his adversaries, who so mis- 
takenly applied to him the epithets of tyrant and usurper. "^^ 

Despite these sufferings, Lincoln had not the slightest 
thought of giving way. Not in him any likeness to the 
sentimentalists, Greeley and all his crew, who were exultant 
martyrs when things were going right, and shrieking paci- 
fists the moment anything went wrong. In one of the 
darkest moments of the year, he made a brief address at a 
Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia. 

"Speaking of the present campaign," said he, "General 
Grant is reported to have said, 'I am going to fight it out on 
this line if it takes all summer.' This war has taken three 
years; it was begun or accepted upon the line of restoring 
the national authority over the whole national domain, and 



CATASTROPHE 347 

for the American people, as far as my knowledge enables 
me to speak, I say we are going through on this line if it 
taJces three years more."^^ He made no attempt to affect 
Grant's course. He had put him in supreme command and 
would leave everything to his judgment. And then came 
the colossal blunder at Cold Harbor. Grant stood again 
where McClellan had stood two years before. He stood 
there defeated. He could think of nothing to do but just 
what McClellan had wanted to do — abandon the immediate 
enterprise, make a great detour to the Southwest, and start 
a new campaign on a different plan. Two years with all 
their terrible disasters, and this was all that had come of 
it! Practically no gain, and a death-roll that staggered the 
nation. A wail went over the North. After all, was the 
war hopeless? Was Lee invincible? Was the best of the 
Northern manhood perishing to no result ? 

Greeley, perhaps the most hysterical man of genius 
America has produced, made his paper the organ of the 
wail. He wrote frantic appeals to the government to cease 
fighting, do what could be done by negotiation, and if noth- 
ing could be done — at least, stop "these rivers of human 
blood." 

The Vindictives saw their opportunity. They would 
capitalize the wail. The President should be dealt with 
yet. 



XXX 

THE PRESIDENT VERSUS THE VINDICTIVES 

Now that the Vindictives had made up their minds to 
fight, an occasion was at their hands. Virtually, they de- 
clared war on the President by refusing to recognize a 
State government which he had set up in Arkansas. Con- 
gress would not admit Senators or Representatives from 
the Reconstructed State. But on this issue, Lincoln was 
as resolute to fight to a finish as were any of his detractors. 
He wrote to General Steele, commanding in Arkansas : 

"I understand that Congress declines to admit to seats 
the persons sent as Senators and Representatives from 
Arkansas. These persons apprehend that, in consequence, 
you may not support the new State government there as 
you otherwise would. My wish is that you give that gov- 
ernment and the people there the same support and protec- 
tion that you would if the members had been admitted, 
because in no event, nor in any view of the case, can this 
do harm, while it will be the best you can do toward sup- 
pressing the rebellion."^ 

The same day Chase resigned. The reason he assigned 
was, again, the squabble over patronage. He had insisted 
on an appointment of which the President disapproved. 
Exactly what moved him may be questioned. Chase never 
gave his complete confidence, not even to his diary. Whether 
he thought that the Vindictives would now take him up as 
a rival of Lincoln, continues doubtful. Many men were 

348 



PRESIDENT VERSUS VINDICTIVES 349 

staggered by his action, Chittenden, the Registrar of the 
Treasury, was thrown into a panic. "Mr. President," said 
he, "this is worse than another Bull Run. Pray let me go 
to Secretary Chase and see if I can not induce him to 
withdraw his resignation. Its acceptance now might cause 
a financial panic." But Lincoln was in a fighting mood. 
"Chase thinks he has become indispensable to the country," 
he told Chittenden. . . . "He also thinks he ought to 
be President ; he has no doubt whatever about that. . . . 
He is an able financier, a great statesman, and at the bot- 
tom a patriot . . . he is never perfectly happy unless 
he is thoroughly miserable and able to make everybody 
else just as uncomfortable as he is himself. . . . He 
is either determined to annoy me or that I shall pat him 
on the shoulder and coax him to stay. I don't think I 
ought to do it. I will take him at his word."- 

He accepted the resignation in a note that was almost 
curt: "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability 
and fidelity, I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I 
have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our offi- 
cial relations which it seems can not be overcome or longer 
sustained consistently with the public service."^ 

The selection of a successor to Chase was no easy mat- 
ter. The Vindictives were the leaders of the moment. What 
if they persuaded the Senate not to confirm Lincoln's choice 
of Secretary. "I never saw the President," says Carpenter, 
"under so much excitement as on the day following this 
event." On the night of July first, Lincoln lay awake de- 
bating with himself the merits of various candidates. At 
length, he selected his man and immediately went to sleep. 

"The next morning he went to his office and wrote the 
nomination. John Hay, the assistant private secretary, 



350 LINCOLN 

had taken it from the President on his way to the Capitol, 
when he encountered Senator Fessenden upon the thres- 
hold of the room. As chairman of the Finance Commit- 
tee, he also had passed an anxious night, and called thus 
early to consult with the President, and offer some sug- 
gestions. After a few moments' conversation, Mr. Lincoln 
turned to him with a smile and said : 'I am obliged to you, 
Fessenden, but the fact is, I have just sent your own name 
to the Senate for Secretary of the Treasury. Hay had 
just received the nomination from my hand as you entered.' 
Mr. Fessenden was taken completely by surprise, and, very 
much agitated, protested his inability to accept the posi- 
tion. The state of his health, he said, if no other con- 
sideration, made it impossible. Mr. Lincoln would not ac- 
cept the refusal as final. He very justly felt that with Mr. 
Fessenden's experience and known ability at the head of 
the Finance Committee, his acceptance would go far toward 
reestablishing a feeling of security. He said to him, very 
earnestly, 'Fessenden, the Lord has not deserted me thus 
far, and He is not going to now — you must accept!' 

"They separated, the Senator in great anxiety of mind. 
Throughout the day, Mr. Lincoln urged almost all who 
called to go and see Mr. Fessenden, and press upon him 
the duty of accepting. Among these, was a delegation of 
New York bankers, who, in the name of the banking com- 
munity, expressed their satisfaction at the nomination. 
This was especially gratifying to the President; and In the 
strongest manner, he entreated them to 'see Mr. Fessenden 
and assure him of their support' "* 

In justification of his choice, Lincoln said to Hay: 
"Thinking over the matter, two or three points occurred 
to me: first his thorough acquaintance with the business; 



PRESIDENT VERSUS VINDICTIVES 351 

as chairman of the Senate Committee of Finance, he knows 
as much of this special subject as Mr. Chase; he possesses a 
national reputation and the confidence of the country; he 
is a Radical without the petulance and fret fulness of many- 
radicals."^ In other words, though he was not at heart 
one of them, he stood for the moment so close to the Vin- 
dictives that they would not make an issue on his confirma- 
tion. 

Lincoln had scored a point in his game with the Vin- 
dictives. But the point was of little value. The game's 
real concern was that Reconstruction Bill which was now 
before the Senate with Wade as its particular sponsor. 
The great twin brethren of the Vindictives were Wade 
and Chandler. Both were furious for the passage of the 
bill. "The Executive," said Wade angrily, "ought not to 
be allowed to handle this great question of his own 
hking." 

On the last day of the session, Lincoln was in the Presi- 
dent's room at the Capitol signing bills. The Reconstruc- 
tion Bill, duly passed by both Houses, was brought to him. 
Several Senators, friends of the bill and deeply anxious, had 
come into the President's room hoping to see him affix his 
signature. To their horror, he merely glanced at the bill 
and laid it aside. Chandler, who was watching him, bluntly 
demanded what he meant to do. "This bill," said Lincoln, 
"has been placed before me a few minutes before Congress 
adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance to be 
swallowed in that way." 

"If it is vetoed," said Chandler whose anger was 
mounting, "it will damage us fearfully in the Northwest. 
The important point is that one prohibiting slavery in the 
Reconstructed States." 



352 LINCOLN 

"That is the point," repHed the President, "on which I 
doubt tlie authority of Congress to act." 

"It is no more than you have done yourself," retorted 
Chandler. 

Lincoln turned to him and said quietly but with finality : 
"I conceive that I may in an emergency do things on mili- 
tary grounds which can not constitutionally be done by 
Congress." 

Chandler angrily left the room. To those who re- 
mained, Lincoln added : "I do not see how any of us now 
can deny and contradict what we have always said, that 
Congress has no constitutional power over slavery in the 
States."^ 

In a way, he was begging the question. The real issue 
was not how a State should be constitutionally recon- 
structed, but which. President or Congress, had a right to 
assume dictatorial power. At last the true Vindictive issue, 
lured out of their arms by the Democrats, had escaped like 
a bird from a snare and was fluttering home. Here was 
the old issue of the war powers in a new form that it was 
safe for them to press. And the President had squarely 
defied them. It was civil war inside the Union party. And 
for both sides. President and Vindictives, there could now 
be notliing but rule or ruin. 

In this crisis of factional politics, Lincoln was unmoved, 
self-contained, lofty, deliberate. "If they (the Vindictives) 
choose to make a point on this, I do not doubt that they 
can do harm. They have never been friendly to me. At 
all events, I must keep some consciousness of being some- 
where near right. I must keep some standard of principle 
fixed within myself." 



VICTORY 



XXXI 



A MENACING PAUSE 



Lincoln had now reached his final stature. In contact 
with the world his note was an inscrutable serenity. The 
jokes which he continued to tell were but transitory glim- 
merings. They crossed the surface of his mood like quick 
flickers of golden light on a stormy J^.Iarch day, — witnesses 
that the sun would yet prevail, — in a forest among mountain 
shadows. Or, they were lightning glimmers in a night 
sky; they revealed, they did not dispel, the dark beyond. 
Over all his close associates his personal ascendency Avas 
complete. Now that Chase was gone, the last callous spot 
in the Cabinet had been amputated. Even Stanton, once so 
domineering, so difficult to manage, had become as clay in 
his hands. 

But Lincoln never used power for its own sake, never 
abused his ascendency. Always he got his end if he could 
without evoking the note of command. He would go to 
surprising lengths to avoid appearing peremptory. A typ- 
ical remark was his smiling reply to a Congressman whom 
he had armed with a note to the Secretary, who had re- 
turned aghast, the Secretary having refused to comply with 
the President's request and having decorated his refusal 
with extraordinary language. 

"Did Stanton say I was a damned fool?" asked Lin- 
coln. "Then I dare say I must be one, for Stanton is gen- 
erally right and he always says what he means," 

355 



356 LINCOLN 

Nevertheless, the time had come when Lincoln had only 
to say the word and Stanton, no matter how fierce his 
temper might be, would acknowledge his master. General 
Fry, the Provost Marshal, witnessed a scene between them 
which is a curious commentary on the transformation of 
the Stanton of 1862. Lincoln had issued an order relative 
to the disposition of certain recruits. Stanton protested 
that it was unwarranted, that he would not put it into 
effect. The Provost Marshal was called in and asked to 
state at length all the facts involved. When he had finished 
Stanton broke out excitedly — 

" 'Now, Mr. President, those are the facts and you 
must see that your order can not be executed.' 

"Lincoln sat upon a sofa with his legs crossed and did 
not say a word until the Secretary's last remark. Then 
he said in a somewhat positive tone, 'Mr. Secretary, I 
reckon you'll have to execute the order.' 

"Stanton replied with asperity, 'Mr. President, I can 
not do it. The order is an improper one, and I can not 
execute it' 

"Lincoln fixed his eye upon Stanton, and in a firm voice 
with an accent that clearly showed his determination, he 
said, 'Mr. Secretary, it will have to he done.' ''^ 

At this point, General Fry discreetly left the room. A 
few moments later, he received instructions from Stanton to 
execute the President's order. 

In a public matter in the June of 1864 Lincoln gave a 
demonstration of his original way of doing things. It dis- 
played his final serenity in such unexpected fashion that no 
routine politician, no dealer in the catchwords of statecraft, 
could understand it. Since that grim joke, the deportation 
of Vallandigham, the Copperhead leader had not had a 



A MENACING PAUSE 357 

happy time. The Confederacy did not want him. He had 
made his way to Canada. Thence, in the spring of 1864 
he served notice on his country that he would perform a 
dramatic part, play the role of a willing- martyr — in a word, 
come home and defy the government to do its worst. He 
came. But Lincoln did nothing. The American sense of 
humor did the rest. If Vallandigham had not advertised a 
theatrical exploit, ignoring him might have been dangerous. 
But Lincoln knew his people. When the show did not 
come off, Vallandigham was transformed in an instant 
from a martyr to an anticlimax. Though he went busily 
to work, though he lived to attend the Democratic National 
Convention and to write the resolution that was the heart 
of its platform, his tale was told. 

Turning from Vallandigham. partly in amusement, 
partly in contempt, Lincoln grappled with the problem of 

I reinforcing the army. Since the spring of 1863 the 
wastage of the army had been replaced by conscription. 

f But the system had not worked well. It contained a fatal 
provision. A drafted man might escape service by paying 
three hundred dollars. Both the Secretary of War and 
the Provost Marshal had urged the abolition of this detail. 
Lincoln had communicated their arguments to Congress 
with his approval and a new law had been drawn up ac- 
cordingly. Nevertheless, late in June, the House amended 
it by restoring the privilege of commuting service for 
money.- Lincoln bestirred himself. The next day he 
called together the Republican members of the House. 
"With a sad, mysterious light in his melancholy eyes, as if 
they were familiar with things hidden from mortals" he 
urged the Congressmen to reconsider their action. The 
time of three hundred eighty thousand soldiers would ex- 



358 LINCOLN 

pire in October. He must have half a milHon to take their 
places. A Congressman objected that elections were ap- 
proaching; that the rigorous law he proposed would be in- 
tensely unpopular; that it might mean the defeat, at the 
polls, of many Republican Representatives; it might even 
mean the President's defeat. He replied that he had 
thought of all that. 

"My election is not • necessary ; I must put down the 
rebellion; I must have five hundred thousand more men."^ 

He raised the timid politicians to his own level, inspired 
them with new courage. Two days later a struggle began 
in the House for carrying out Lincoln's purpose. On the 
last day of the session along with the offensive Reconstruc- 
tion Bill, he received the new Enrollment Act which pro- 
vided that "no payment of money shall be accepted or re- 
ceived by the Government as commutation to release any 
enrolled or drafted man from personal obligation to per- 
form military service." 

Against this inflexible determination to fight to a finish, 
this indifference to the political consequences of his de- 
termination, Lincoln beheld arising like a portentous 
specter, a fury of pacifism. It found expression in Greeley. 
Always the swift victim of his own affrighted hope, Greeley 
had persuaded himself that both North and South had lost 
heart for the war; that there was needed only a moving 
appeal, and they would throw down their arms and the 
millennium would come. Furthermore, on the flimsiest 
sort of evidence, he had fallen into a trap designed to place 
the Northern government in the attitude of suing for peace. 
He wrote to Lincoln demanding that he send an agent to 
confer with certain Confederate officials who were reported 
to be then in Canada; he also suggested terms of peace.* 



A MENACING PAUSE 359 

Greeley's terms were entirely acceptable to Lincoln; but he 
had no faith in the Canadian mare's nest. However, he 
decided to give Greeley the utmost benefit of the doubt, and 
also to teach him a lesson. He commissioned Greeley him- 
self to proceed to Canada, there to discover "if there is 
or is not anything in the affair." He v\^rote to him, "I not 
only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you 
shall be a personal witness that it is made."^ 

Greeley, who did not want to have any responsibility 
for anything that might ensue, whose joy was to storm and 
to find fault, accepted the duty he could not well refuse, 
and set out in a bad humor. 

Meanwhile two other men had conceived an undertak- 
ing somewhat analogous but in a temper widely different. 
These were Colonel Jaquess, a clergyman turned soldier, a 
man of high simplicity of character, and J. R. Gilmore, a 
writer, known by the pen name of Edmund Kirke, Jaquess 
had told Gilmore of information he had received from 
friends in the Confederacy; he was convinced that nothing 
would induce the Confederate government to consider any 
terms of peace that embraced reunion, whether with or 
without emancipation. "It at once occurred to me," says 
Gilmore, "that if this declaration could be got in such a 
manner that it could be given to the public, it would, if 
scattered broadcast over the North, destroy the peace-party 
and reelect Mr. Lincoln." Gilmore went to Washington 
and obtained an interview with the President. He assured 
him — and he was a newspaper correspondent whose experi- 
ence was worth considering — that the new pacifism, the 
incipient "peace party," was schooling the country in the 
belief that an offer of liberal terms would be followed by a 
Southern surrender. The masses wanted peace on any 



36o LINCOLN 

terms that would preserve the Union; and the Democrats 
were going to tell them in the next election that Lincoln 
could save the Union by negotiation, if he would. Unless 
the popular mind were disabused of this fictitious hope, the 
Democrats would prevail and the Union would collapse. 
But if an offer to negotiate should be made, and if "Davis 
should refuse to negotiate — as he probably would, except 
on the basis of Southern independence — that fact alone 
would reunite the North, reelect Lincoln, and thus save the 
Union."« 

"Then," said Lincoln, "you would fight the devil with 
fire. You would get that declaration from Davis and use 
it against him." 

Gilmore defended himself by proposing to offer ex- 
tremely liberal terms. There was a pause in the conversa- 
tion. Lincoln who was seated at his desk "leaned slightly 
forward looking directly into (Gilmore's) eyes, but with 
an absent, far-away gaze as if unconscious of (his) pres- 
ence." Suddenly, relapsing into his usual badinage, he 
said, "God selects His own instruments and some times they 
are queer ones : for instance, He chose me to see the ship 
of state through a great crisis."'^ He went on to say that 
Gilmore and Jaquess might be the very men to seiwe a great 
purpose at this moment. Gilmore knew the world; and 
anybody could see at a glance that Jaquess never told any- 
thing that wasn't true. If they would go to Richmond on 
their own responsibility, make it plain to President Davis 
that they were not official agents, even taking the chance of 
arrest and imprisonment, they might go. This condition was 
accepted. Lincoln went on to say that no advantage should 
be taken of Mr. Davis; that nothing should be proposed 
which if accepted would not be made good. After con- 



A MENACING PAUSE 361 

siderable further discussion he drew up a memorandum of 
the terms upon which he would consent to peace. There 
were seven items : 

1. The immediate dissohition of the armies. 

2. The abohtion of slavery. 

3. A general amnesty. 

4. The Seceded States to resume their functions as 
states in the Union as if no secession had taken place. 

5. Four hundred million dollars to be appropriated by 
Congress as compensation for loss of slave property; no 
slaveholder, however, to receive more than one-half the 
former value of his slaves. 

6. A national convention to be called for .readjustment 
of all other difficulties. 

7. It to be understood that the purpose of negotiation 
was a full restoration of the Union as of old.^ 

Gilmore and Jaquess might say to Davis that they had 
private but sure knowledge that the President of the United 
States would agree to peace on these terms. Thus pro- 
vided, they set forth. 

Lincoln's thoughts were speedily claimed by an event 
which had no suggestion of peace. At no time since Jack- 
son threw the government into a panic in the spring of 
1862, had Washington been in danger of capture. Now, 
briefly, it appeared to be at the mercy of General Early. In 
the last act of a daring raid above the Potomac, he came 
sweeping down on Washington from the North. As Grant 
was now the active commander-in-chief, responsible for all 
the Northern armies, Lincoln with a fatalistic calm made 
no move to take the capital out of his hands. When Early 
was known to be headed toward Washington, Lincoln 
drove out as usual to spend the night at the Soldiers' Home, 



Z<o2 LINCOLN 

beyond the fortifications. Stanton, in whom there was a 
reminiscence at least of the hysterical Secretary of 1862, 
sent after him post haste and insisted on his returning. 
The next day, the eleventh of July, 1864, Washington 
was invested by the Confederate forces. There was sharp 
firing in front of several forts. Lincoln — and for that 
matter, Mrs. Lincoln also — made a tour of the defenses. 
While Fort Stevens was under fire, he stood on the parapet, 
"apparently unconscious of danger, watching with that 
grave and passive countenance the progress of the fight, 
amid the whizzing bullets of the sharp shooters, until an 
officer fell mortally wounded within three feet of him, and 
General Wright peremptorily represented to him the need- 
less risk he was running." Hay recorded in his diary "the 
President in good feather this evening . . . not con- 
cerned about Washington's safety . . . only thought, 
'can we bag or destroy the force in our front.' " He was 
much disappointed when Early eluded the forces which 
Grant hurried to the Capitol. Mrs. Lincoln was outspoken 
to the same effect. The doughty little lady had also been 
under fire, her temper being every whit as bold as her hus- 
band's. When Stanton with a monumental playfulness 
proposed to have her portrait painted in a commanding 
attitude on the parapet of Fort Stevens, she gave him the 
freedom of her tongue, because of the inadequacy of his 
department.^ 

This incident had its aftermath. A country-place be- 
longing to the Postmaster General had been laid waste. Its 
owner thought that the responsibility for permitting Early 
to come so near to Washington fell chiefly on General Hal- 
leck. He made some sharp criticisms which became public. 
The General flew into a rage and wrote to the Secretary of 



A MENACING PAUSE 363 

War: "The Postmaster General ought to be dismissed by 
the President from the Cabinet." Stanton handed his letter 
to the President, from whom the next day the General re- 
ceived this note: "Whether the remarks were made I do 
not know, nor do I suppose such knowledge is necessary to 
a correct response. If they were made, I do not approve 
them; and yet, under the circumstances, I would not dis- 
miss a member of the Cabinet therefor. I do not consider 
what may have been hastily said in a moment of vexation 
at so severe a loss is sufficient ground for so grave a step. 
Besides this, truth is generally the best vindication against 
slander. I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to 
when a member of the Cabinet shall be dismissed." Lin- 
coln spoke of the affair at his next conference with his 
Ministers. "I must, myself, be the judge," said he, "how 
long to retain in and when to remove any of you from his 
position. It would greatly pain me to discover any of you 
endeavoring to procure another's removal, or in any way 
to prejudice him before the public. Such an endeavor 
would be a wrong to me, and much worse, a wrong to the 
country. My wish is that on this subject no remark be 
made nor question asked by any of you, here or elsewhere, 
now or hereafter.''^^ 

Not yet had anything resulted either from the Canadian 
mission of Greeley, or from the Richmond adventure of 
Gilmore and Jaquess. There was a singular ominous pause 
in events. Lincoln could not be blind to the storm signals 
that had attended the close of Congress. What were the 
Vindictives about? As yet they had made no sign. But 
it was incredible that they could pass over his defiance with- 
out a return blow. When would it come? What would 
it be? 



364 LINCOLN 

He spent his nights at the Soldiers' Home. As a rule, 
his family were with him. Sometimes, however, Mrs. Lin- 
coln and his sons would be absent and his only companion 
was one of the ardent young secretaries. Then he would 
indulge in reading Shakespeare aloud, it might be with 
such forgetfulness of time that only the nodding of the tired 
young head recalled him to himself and brought the read- 
ing to an end. A visitor has left this charming picture of 
Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home in the sad sweetness of a 
summer night: 

"The Soldiers' Home is a few miles out of Washington 
on the Maryland side. It is situated on a beautiful wooded 
hill, which 3^ou ascend by a winding path, shaded on both 
sides by wide-spread branches, forming a green arcade 
above you. When you reach the top you stand between 
two mansions, large, handsome and substantial, but with 
nothing about them to indicate the character of either. 
That on the left is the Presidential country house; that 
directly before you, is the 'Rest,' for soldiers who are too 
old for further service ... in the graveyard near at 
hand there are numberless graves — some without a spear of 
grass to hide their newness — that hold the bodies of volun- 
teers. 

"While we stood in the soft evening air, watching the 
faint trembling of the long tendrils of waving willow, and 
feeling the dewy coolness that was flung out by the old 
oaks above us, Mr. Lincoln joined us, and stood silent, too, 
takinpf in the scene. 



'fc) 



' 'How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest,' — 



he said, softly. 



A MENACING PAUSE 365 

"Around the 'Home' grows every variety of tree, par- 
ticularly of the evergreen class. Their branches brushed 
into the carriage as we passed along, and left us with that 
pleasant woody smell belonging to leaves. One of the 
ladies, catching a bit of green from one of these intruding 
branches, said it was cedar, and another thought it spruce. 

" 'Let me discourse on a theme I understand,' said the 
President. *I know all about trees in right of being a 
backwoodsman. Pll show you the difference between 
spruce, pine and cedar, and this shred of green, which is 
neither one nor the other, but a kind of illegitimate cypress.' 
He then proceeded to gather specimens of each, and ex- 
plain the distinctive formation of foliage belonging to 
each."ii 

Those summer nights of July, 1864, had many secrets 
which the tired President musing in the shadows of the 
giant trees or finding solace with the greatest of earthly 
minds would have given much to know. How were Gil- 
more and Jaquess faring? What was really afoot in Can- 
ada? And that unnatural silence of the Vindictives, what 
did that mean? And the two great armies. Grant's in Vir- 
ginia, Sherman's in Georgia, was there never to be stirring 
news of either of these? The hush of the moment, the 
atmosphere of suspense that seemed to envelop him, it was 
just what had always for his imagination had such strange 
charm in the stories of fated men. He turned again to 
Macbeth, or to Richard 11, or to Hamlet. Shakespeare, 
too, understood these mysterious pauses — who better! 

The sense of the impending was strengthened by the 
alarms of some of his best friends. They besought him 
to abandon his avowed purpose to call for a draft of half a 
million under the new Enrollment Act. Many voices joined 



366 LINCOLN 

the one chorus : the country is on the verge of despair ; 
you will wreck the cause by demanding another colossal 
sacrifice. But he would not listen. When, in desperation, 
they struck precisely the wrong note, and hinted at the ruin 
of his political prospects, he had his calm reply : "It mat- 
.ters not what becomes of me. We must have men. If I 
go down, I intend to go like the Cumberland^ with my 
colors flying."^^ 

Thus the days passed until the eighteenth of July. 
Meanwhile the irresponsible Greeley had made a sad mess 
of his Canadian adventure. Though Lincoln had given 
him definite instructions, requiring him to negotiate only 
with agents who could produce written authority from 
Davis, and who would treat on the basis of restoration of 
the Union and abandonment of slavery, Greeley ignored 
both these unconditional requirements.^^ He had found 
the Confederate agents at Niagara. They had no creden- 
tials. Nevertheless, he invited them to come to Washing- 
ton and open negotiations. Of the President's two condi- 
tions, he said not a word. This was just what the agents 
wanted. It could easily be twisted into the semblance 
of an attempt by Lincoln to sue for peace. They accepted 
the invitation. Greeley telegraphed to Lincoln reporting 
what he had done. Of course, it was plain that he had 
misrepresented Lincoln; that he had far exceeded his 
authority; and that his perverse unfaithfulness must be 
repudiated. On July eighteenth, Hay set out for Niagara 
with this paper in Lincoln's handwriting :^^ 

"To whom it may concern : Any proposition which 
embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole 
Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes 
by and with an authority that can control the armies now 



A MENACING PAUSE 367 

at war against the United States, will be received and con- 
sidered by the executive government of the United States, 
and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and 
collateral points and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have 
safe conduct both ways. Abraham Lincoln." 

This was the end of the negotiation. The agents could 
not accept these terms. Immediately, they published a ver- 
sion of what had happened : they had been invited to come 
to Washington; subsequently, conditions had been imposed 
which made it impossible for them to accept. Was not the 
conclusion plain? The Washington government was try- 
ing to open negotiations but it was also in the fear of its 
own supporters playing craftily a double game. These 
astute diplomats saw that there was a psychological crisis 
in the North, By adding to the confusion of the hour they 
had well served their cause. Greeley's fiasco was sus- 
ceptible of a double interpretation. To the pacifists it 
meant that the government, whatever may have been in- 
tended at the start, had ended by setting impossible condi- 
tions of peace. To the supporters of the war, it meant that 
whatever were the last thoughts of the government, it had 
for a time contemplated peace without any conditions at all. 

Lincoln was severely condemned, Greeley was ridi- 
culed, by both groups of interpreters. Why did not Greeley 
come out bravely and tell the truth ? Why did he not con- 
fess that he had suppressed Lincoln's first set of instruc- 
tions; that it was he, on his own responsibility, who had 
led the Confederate agents astray; that he, not Lincoln, was 
solely to blame for the false impression that was now being 
used so adroitly to injure the President? Lincoln proposed 
to publish their correspondence, but made a condition that 
was characteristic. Greeley's letters rang with cries of 



368 LINCOLN 

despair. He was by far the most influential Northern 
editor. Lincoln asked him to strike out these hopeless 
passages. Greeley refused. The correspondence must be 
published entire or not at all. Lincoln suppressed it. He 
let the blame of himself go on; and he said nothing in 
extenuation.^^ 

He took some consolation in a "card" that appeared in 
the Boston Transcript, July 22. It gave a brief account 
of the adventure of Gilmore and Jaquess, and stated the 
answer given to them by the President of the Confederacy. 
That answer, as restated by the Confederate Secretary of 
State, was : "he had no authority to receive proposals for 
negotiations except by virtue of his office as President of 
an independent Confederacy and on this basis alone must 
proposals be made to him."^^ 

There was another circumstance that may well have 
been Lincoln's consolation in this tangle of cross-purposes. 
Only boldness could extricate him from the mesh of his 
difficulties. The mesh was destined to grow more and 
more of a snare ; his boldness was to grow with his danger. 
He struck the note that was to rule his conduct thereafter, 
when, on the day he sent the final instructions to Greeley, 
in defiance of his timid advisers, he issued a proclamation 
calling for a new draft of half a million men.^^ 



XXXII 

THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY 

Though the Vindictives kept a stealthy silence during 
July, they were sharpening their claws and preparing for a 
tiger spring w'henever the psychological moment should 
arrive. Those two who had had charge of the Reconstruc- 
tion Bill prepared a paper, in some w-ays the most singular 
paper of the war period, which has established itself in our 
history as the Wade-Davis Manifesto. This was to be the 
deadly shot that should unmask the Vindictive batteries, 
bring their war upon the President out of the shadows into 
the open. 

Greeley's fiasco and Greeley's mortification both played 
into their hands. The fiasco contributed to depress still 
more the despairing North. By this time, there was gen- 
eral appreciation of the immensity of Grant's failure, not 
only at Cold Harbor, but in the subsequent slaughter of 
the futile assault upon Petersburg. We have the word of 
a member of the Committee that the despair over Grant 
translated itself into blame of the Administration.^ The 
Draft Proclamation; the sw'iftly traveling report that the 
government had wilfully brought the peace negotiations to 
a stand-still; the continued cry that the war was hopeless; 
all these produced, about the first of August, an emotional 
crisis — just the sort of occasion for which Lincoln's 
enemies were waiting. 

369 



370 LINCOLN 

Then, too, there was Greeley's mortification. The Ad- 
ministration papers made him a target for sarcasm. The 
Times set the pace with scornful demands for "No more 
back door diplomacy."^ Greeley answered in a rage. He 
permitted himself to imply that the President originated 
the Niagara negotiation and that Greeley "reluctantly" be- 
came a party to it. That "reluctantly" was the truth, in a 
sense, but how falsely true! Wade and Davis had him 
where they wanted him. On the fifth of August, The 
Tribune printed their manifesto. It was an appeal to "the 
supporters of the Administration ... to check the 
encroachment of the Executive on the authority of Con- 
gress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper 
sphere." It insinuated the basest motives for the Presi- 
dent's interest in reconstruction, and for rejecting their own 
bill. "The President by preventing this bill from becom- 
ing a law, holds the electoral votes of the Rebel States at the 
dictation of his personal ambition. ... If electors 
for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those 
States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which 
induced the President to 'hold for naught' the will of Con- 
gress rather than his government in Louisiana and 
Arkansas." 

After a long discussion of his whole course with regard 
to reconstruction, having heaped abuse upon him with 
shocking liberality, the Manifesto concluded : 

"Such are the fruits of this rash and fatal act of the 
President — a blow at the friends of the Administration, at 
the rights of humanity, and at the principles of Republican 
government. The President has greatly presumed on the 
forbearance which the supporters of his Administration 
have so long practised in view of the arduous conflict in 



THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY 371 

which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our 
poHtical opponents. But he must understand that our sup- 
port is of a 'cause' and not of a man; that the authority 
of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the 
whole body of the Union men in Congress will not submit 
to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legis- 
lation; and if he wishes our support he must confine him- 
self to his executive duties — to obey and execute, not make 
the laws — to suppress by arms, armed rebellion, and leave 
political reorganization to Congress. If the supporters of 
the government fail to insist on this they become respon- 
sible for the usurpations they fail to rebuke and are justly 
liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and 
security, committed to their keeping, they sacrifice. Let 
them consider the remedy of these usurpations, and, hav- 
ing found it, fearlessly execute it." 

To these incredible charges, Lincoln made no reply. 
He knew, what some statesmen never appear to know, the 
times when one should risk all upon that French proverb, 
"who excuses, accuses." However, he made his futile at- 
tempt to bring Greeley to reason, to induce him to tell the 
truth about Niagara without confessing to the country the 
full measure of the despair that had inspired his course. 
When Greeley refused to do so, Lincoln turned to other 
matters, to preparation for the draft, and grimly left the 
politicians to do their worst. They went about it with 
zest. Their reliance was chiefly their power to infect the 
type of party man who is easily swept from his moorings 
by the cry that the party is in danger, that sacrifices must 
be made to preserve the party unity, that otherwise the 
party will go to pieces. By the middle of August, six 
weeks after Lincoln's defiance of them on the fourth of 



372 LINCOLN 

July, they were in high feather, convinced that most things 
were coming their way. American politicians have not al- 
ways shown an ability to read clearly the American people. 
Whether the politicians were in error on August 14, 1864, 
and again on August twenty-third, two dates that were 
turning points, is a matter of debate to this day. As to 
August fourteenth, they have this, at least, in their defense. 
The country had no political observer more keen than the 
Scotch free lance who edited The New York Herald. It 
was Bennett's editorial view that Lincoln would do well 
to make a virtue of necessity and withdraw his candidacy 
because "the dissatisfaction which had long been felt by 
the great body of American citizens has spread even to his 
own supporters."^ Confident that a great reaction against 
Lincoln was sweeping the country, that the Manifesto had 
been launched in the very nick of time, a meeting of con- 
spirators was held in New York, at the house of David 
Dudley Field, August fourteenth. Though Wade was now 
at his home in Ohio, Davis was present. So was Greeley. 
It was decided to ask Lincoln to withdraw. Four days 
afterward, a "call" was drawn up and sent out confiden- 
tially near and far to be signed by prominent politicians. 
The "call" was craftily worded. It summoned a new 
Union Convention to meet in Cincinnati, September 
twenty-eighth, for the purpose either of rousing the party 
to whole-hearted support of Lincoln, or of uniting all fac- 
tions on some new candidate. Greeley who could not at- 
tend the committee which drew up the "call" wrote that 
"Lincoln is already beaten."* 

Meanwhile, the infection of dismay had spread fast 
among the Lincoln managers. Even before the meeting of 
the conspirators on the fourteenth, Weed told the Presi- 



THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY 373 

dent that he conld not be reelected.' One of his bravest 
supporters, Washburne, came to the dismal conclusion that 
"were an election to be held now in Illinois, we should be 
beaten." Cameron, who had returned from Russia and 
was working hard for Lincoln In Pennsylvania, was equally 
discouraging. So was Governor Morton in Indiana. 
From all his "stanchest friends," wrote his chief manager 
to Lincoln, "there was but one report. The tide is setting 
strongly against us."^ 

Lincoln's managers believed that the great host of free 
voters who are the balance of power in American politics, 
were going in a drove toward the camp of the Democrats. 
It was the business of the managers to determine which 
one, or which ones, among the voices of discontent, repre- 
sented truly this controlling body of voters. They thought 
they knew. Two cries, at least, that rang loud out of the 
Babel of the hour, should be heeded. One of these harked 
back to Niagara. In the anxious ears of the managers it 
dinned this charge : "the Administration prevented negotia- 
tions for peace by tying together two demands, the Union 
must be restored and slavery must be abolished ; if Lincoln 
had left out slavery, he could have had peace in a restored 
Union." It was ridiculous, as ever}' one who had not gone 
off his head knew. But so many had gone off their heads. 
And some of Lincoln's friends were meeting this cry in a 
way that was raising up other enemies of a different sort. 
Even so faithful a friend as Raymond, editor of The Times 
and Chairman of the Republican National Executive Com- 
mittee, labored hard in print to prove that because Lincoln 
said he "zvould consider terms that embraced the integrity 
of the Union and the abandonment of slavery, he did not 
say that he would not receive them unless they embraced 



374 LINCOLN 

both these conditions."'' What would Sumner and all the 
Abolitionists say to that ? As party strategy, in the moment 
when the old Vindictive Coalition seemed on the highroad 
to complete revival, was that exactly the tune to sing? 
Then too there was the other cry that also made a fearful 
ringing in the ears of the much alarmed Executive Com- 
mittee. There was wild talk in the air of an armistice. 
The hysteric Greeley had put it into a personal letter to 
Lincoln. "I know that nine-tenths of the whole American 
people, North and South, are anxious for peace — peace on 
any terms — and are utterly sick of human slaughter and 
devastation. I know that, to the general eye, it now seems 
that the Rebels are anxious to negotiate and that we repulse 
their advances. ... I beg you, I implore you to in- 
augurate or invite proposals for peace forthwith. And in 
case peace can not now be made, consent to an armistice 
for one year, each party to retain all it now holds, but the 
Rebel ports to be opened. Meantime, let a national conven- 
tion be held and there will surely be no war at all events."^ 

This armistice movement was industriously advertised 
in the Democratic papers. It was helped along by the 
Washington correspondent of The Herald who sowed 
broadcast the most improbable stories with regard to it. 
To-day, Secretary Fessenden was a convert to the idea; 
another day, Senator Wilson had taken it up; again, the 
President, himself, was for an armistice.^ 

A great many things came swiftly to a head within a 
few days before or after the twentieth of August. Every 
day or two, rumor took a new turn ; or some startling new 
alignment was glimpsed ; and every one reacted to the news 
after his kind. And always the feverish question, what is 
the strength of the faction that approves this? Or, how 



THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY 375 

far will this go toward creating a new element In the poli- 
tical kaleidoscope? About the twentieth of August, Ja- 
quess and Gilmore threw a splashing stone into these 
troubled waters. They published in The Atlantic a full 
account of their interview with Davis, who, in the clearest, 
most unfaltering way had told them that the Southerners 
were fighting for independence and for nothing else; that 
no compromise over slavery; nothing but the recognition 
of the Confederacy as a separate nation would induce them 
to put up their bright swords. As Lincoln subsequently, 
in his perfect clarity of speech, represented Davis: "He 
would accept nothing short of severance of the Union — 
precisely what we will not and can not give. . . . He 
does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse 
to deceive ourselves. He can not voluntarily reaccept the 
Union; we can not voluntarily yield it."^^ 

Whether without the intrusion of Jaquess and Gil- 
more, the Executive Committee would have come to the 
conclusion they now reached, is a mere speculation. They 
thought they were at the point of desperation. They 
thought they saw a way out, a way that reminds one of 
Jaquess and Gilmore. On the twenty-second, Raymond 
sent that letter to Lincoln about "the tide setting strongly 
against us." He also proposed the Committee's way of 
escape: nothing but to offer peace to Davis "on the sole 
condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Consti- 
tution — all other questions to be settled in a convention of 
the people of all the States."^^ He assumed the offer 
would be rejected. Thus the clamor for negotiation would 
be met and brought to naught. Having sent off his letter, 
Raymond got his committee together and started for Wash- 
ington for a council of desperation. 



376 LINCOLN 

And this brings us to the twenty-third of August. On 
that day, pondering Raymond's letter, Lincohi took thought 
with himself what he should say to the Executive Com- 
mittee. A mere opportunist would have met the situation 
with some insincere proposal, by the formulation of terms 
that would have certainly been rejected. We have seen 
how Lincoln reasoned in such a connection when he drew 
up the memorandum for Jaquess and Gilmore. His present 
problem involved nothing of this sort. What he was tliink- 
ing out was how best to induce the committee to accept his 
own attitude : to become for the moment believers in des- 
tiny; to nail their colors; turn their backs as he was doing 
on these devices of diplomacy; and as to the rest — permit 
to heaven. 

Whatever his managers might think, the serious matter 
in Lincoln's mind, that twenty-third of August, was the 
draft. And back of the draft, a tremendous matter which 
probably none of them at the time appreciated. Assuming 
that they were right in their political forecast, assuming 
that he was not to be reelected, what did it signify? For 
him, there was but one answer: that he had only five 
months in which to end the war. And with the tide running 
strong against him, what could he do? But one thing: 
use the war powers while they remained in his hands in 
every conceivable way that might force a conclusion on 
the field of battle. He recorded his determination. A 
Cabinet meeting was held on the twenty-third. Lincoln 
handed his Ministers a folded paper and asked them to 
write their initials on the back. At the time he gave them 
no intimation what the paper contained. It was the fol- 
lowing memorandum : "This morning, as for some days 
past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration 



THE AUGUST CONSPIRACY 377 

will not be reelected. Then it will be my duty to so co- 
operate with the President elect as to save the Union be- 
tween the election and the inauguration, as he will have 
secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly 
save it afterward. "^- 

He took into his confidence "the stronger half of the 
Cabinet, Seward, Stanton and Fessenden," and together 
they assaulted the Committee. ^^ It was a reception amaz- 
ingly different from what had been expected. Instead of 
terrified party diplomats shaking in their shoes, trying to 
face all points at once, morbid over possible political defeats 
in every quarter, they found what may have seemed to 
them a man in a dream; one who was intensely sad, but 
who gave no suggestion of panic, no solicitude about his 
own fate, no doubt of his ultimate victory. Their prac- 
tical astuteness was disarmed by that higher astuteness 
attained only by peculiar minds which can discern through 
some sure interior test the rare moment when it is the 
part of wisdom not to be astute at all. 

Backed by those strong Alinisters, all entirely under his 
influence, Lincoln fully persuaded the Committee that at 
this moment, any overture for peace would be the worst 
of strategic blunders, "would be worse than losing the 
presidential contest — it would be ignominiously surrender- 
ing it in advance."^'* 

Lincoln won a complete spiritual victory over the Com- 
mittee. These dispirited men, who had come to Wash- 
ington to beg for a policy of negotiation, went away in 
such a different temper that Bennett's Washington corre- 
spondent jeered in print at the "silly report" of their hav- 
ing assembled to discuss peace.*^ Obviously, they had 
merely held a meeting of the Executive Committee. The 



378 LINCOLN 

Tribune gorrespondent telegraphed that they were confi- 
dent of Lincoln's reelection. ^'^ 

On the day following the conference with Lincoln, The 
Times announced : "You may rest assured that all reports 
attributing to the government any movements looking to- 
ward negotiations for peace at present are utterly without 
foundation. . . . The government has not enter- 
tained or discussed the project of proposing an armistice 
with the Rebels nor has it any intention of sending com- 
missioners to Richmond ... its sole and undivided 
purpose is to prosecute the war until the rebellion is 
quelled. . . ." Of equal significance was the an- 
nouncement by The Times, fairly to be considered the 
Administration organ : "The President stands firm against 
every solicitation to postpone the draft."^^ 



XXXIII 

THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT 

The question insists upon rising again: were the anti- 
Lincoln politicians justified in their exultation, the Lincoln 
politicians justified in their panic? Nobody will ever 
know; but it is worth considering that the shrewd oppor- 
tunist who expressed himself through The Herald changed 
his mind during a fortnight in August. By one of those 
odd coincidences of which history is full, it was on the 
twenty-third of the month that he warned the Democrats 
and jeered at the Republicans in this insolent fashion: 

"Many of our leading Republicans are now furious 
against Lincoln. . . . Bryant of The Evening Post is 
very angry with Lincoln because Henderson, The Post's 
publisher, has been arrested for defrauding the government. 
Raymond is a little shaky and has to make fre- 
quent journeys to Washington for instructions. . . . 

"Now, to what does all this amount? Our experience 
of politics convinces us that it amounts to nothing. The 
sorehead Republicans complain that Lincoln gives them 
either too little shoddy or too little nigger. What candi- 
date can they find who will give them more of either? 

"The Chicago (Democratic) delegates must very em- 
phatically comprehend that they must beat the whole Re- 
publican party if they elect their candidate. It is a strong 
party even yet and has a heavy army vote to draw upon. 
The error of relying too greatly upon the weakness of the 

379 



38o LINCOLN 

Republicans as developed in the quarrels of the Republican 
leaders, may prove fatal . . . the Republican leaders 
. . . may have their personal quarrels, or their shoddy 
quarrels, or their nigger quarrels with Old Abe; but he has 
the whiphand of them and they will soon be bobbing back 
into the Republican fold, like sheep who have gone astray. 
The most of the fuss some of them kick up now, is simply 
to force Lincoln to give them their terms. 

"We have studied all classes of politicians in our day 
and we warn the Chicago Convention to put no trust in 
the Republican soreheads. Furiously as some of them de- 
nounce Lincoln now, and lukewarm as the rest of them 
are in his cause, they will all be shouting for him as the 
only true Union candidate as soon as the nominations have 
all been made and the chances for bargains have passed. 
. . . Whatever they say now, we venture to predict 
that Wade and his tail ; and Bryant and his tail ; and Wen- 
dell Phillips and his tail; and Weed, Barney, Chase and 
their tails; and Winter Davis, Raymond, Opdyke and For- 
ney who have no tails; will all make tracks for Old Abe's 
plantation, and will soon be found crowing and blowing, 
and vowing and writing, and swearing and stumping the 
state on his side, declaring that he and he alone, is the 
hope of the nation, the bugaboo of Jeff Davis, the first of 
Conservatives, the best of Abolitionists, the purest of 
patriots, the most gullible of mankind, the easiest President 
to manage, and the person especially predestined and fore- 
ordained by Providence to carry on the war, free the nig- 
gers, and give all the faithful a fair share of the spoils. 
The spectable will be ridiculous ; but It Is inevitable."^ 

The cynic of The Herald had something to go upon 
besides his general knowledge of politicians and elections. 



THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT 381 

The Manifesto had not met with universal acclaim. In the 
course of this month of surprises, there were several things 
that an apprehensive observer might interpret as the shadow 
of that hand of fate which was soon to appear upon the 
wall. In the Republican Convention of the Nineteenth 
Ohio District, which included Ashtabula County, Wade's 
county, there were fierce words and then with few dis- 
senting votes, a resolution, "That the recent attack upon 
the President by Wade and Davis is, in our opinion, ill- 
timed, ill-tempered, and ill-advised . . . and inas- 
much as one of the authors of said protest is a citizen of 
this Congressional District and indebted in no small degree 
to our friendship for the position, we deem it a duty no 
less imperative than disagreeable, to pronounce upon that 
disorganizing Manifesto our unqualified disapproval and 
condemnation. "2 

To be sure there were plenty of other voices from 
Ohio and elsewhere applauding "The War on the Presi- 
dent." Nevertheless, there were signs of a reluctance to 
join the movement, and some of these in quarters where 
they had been least expected. Notably, the Abolitionist 
leaders were slow to come forward. Sumner was par- 
ticularly slow. He w^as ready, indeed, to admit that a 
better candidate than Lincoln could be found, and there 
was a whisper that the better candidate was himself. How- 
ever, he was unconditional that he would not participate 
in a fight against Lincoln. If the President could be per- 
suaded to withdraw, that w^as one thing. But otherwise — 
no Sumner in the conspiracy.^ 

Was it possible that Chandler, Wade, Davis and the 
rest had jumped too soon? To rebuild the Vindictive 
Coalition, the group in which Sumner had a place was 



382 LINCOLN 

essential. This group was composed of Abolitionists, 
chiefly New Englanders, and for present purpose their 
central figure was Andrew, the Governor of Massachusetts. 
During the latter half of August, the fate of the Con- 
spiracy hung on the question. Can Andrew and his group 
be drawn in? 

Andrew did not like the President. He was one of 
those who never got over their first impression of the 
strange new man of 1861. He insisted that Lincoln lacked 
the essential qualities of a leader. "To comprehend this 
objection," says his frank biographer, "which to us seems 
so astoundingly wide of the mark, we must realize that 
whenever the New Englander of that generation uttered 
the word 'leader' his mind's eye was filled with the image 
of Daniel Webster . . . his commanding presence, 
his lofty tone about affairs of state, his sonorous profession 
of an ideal, his whole ex cathedra attitude. All those 
characteristics supplied the aristocratic connotation of the 
word 'leader' as required by a community in which a con- 
siderable measure of aristocratic sympathy still lingered. 
. Andrew and his friends were like the men of old 
who having known Saul before time, and beholding him 
prophesying, asked 'Is Saul also among the prophets ?' ""^ 

But Andrew stood well outside the party cabals that 
were hatched at Washington. He and his gave the con- 
spirators a hearing from a reason widely different from any 
of theirs. They distrusted the Executive Committee. The 
argument that had swept the Committee for the moment 
off its feet filled the stern New Englanders with scorn. 
They were prompt to deny any sympathy with die armistice 
movement.^ As Andrew put it, the chief danger of the 
hour was the influence of the Executive Committee on the 



THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT 383 

President, whom he persisted in considering a weak man; 
the chief duty of the hour was to "rescue" Lincoln, or in 
some other way to "check the peace movement of the Re- 
pubhcan managers."*^ If it were fairly certain that this 
could be effected only by putting the conspiracy through, 
Andrew would come in. But could he be clear in his own 
mind that this was the thing to do? While he hesitated, 
Jaquess and Gilmore did their last small part in American 
history and left the stage. They made a tour of the 
Northern States explaining to the various governors the 
purposes of their mission to Richmond, and reporting in 
full their audience with Davis and the impressions they had 
formed.^ This was a point in favor of Lincoln — as An- 
drew thought. On the other hand, there were the edi- 
torials of The Times. As late as the twenty-fourth of 
August, the day before the Washington conference, The 
Times asserted that the President would waive all the ob- 
jects for which the war had been fought, including Aboli- 
tion, if any proposition of peace should come that embraced 
the integrity of the Union. To be sure, this was not con- 
sistent with the report of Jaquess and Gilmore and their 
statement of terms actually set down by Lincoln. And 
yet — it came from the Administration organ edited by the 
chairman of the Executive Committee. Was "rescue" of 
the President anything more than a dream? 

It was just here that Lincoln intervened and revolu- 
tionized the whole situation. With what tense interest 
Andrew must have waited for reports of that conference 
held at Washington on the twenty-fifth. And with what 
delight he must have received them! The publication on 
the twenty-sixth of the sweeping repudiation of the negotia- 
tion policy; the reassertion that the Administration's "sole 



384 LINCOLN 

and undivided purpose was to prosecute the war." Simul- 
taneous was another announcement, also in the minds of 
the New Englanders, of first importance : "So far as there 
being any probability of President Lincoln withdrawing 
from the canvass, as some have suggested, the gentlemen 
comprising the Committee express themselves as confident 
of his reelection."^ 

Meanwhile the letters asking for signatures to the pro- 
posed "call" had been circulated and the time had come 
to take stock of the result. From Ohio, Wade had written 
in a sanguine mood. He was for issuing the call the 
moment the Democratic Convention had taken action.^ 
On the twenty-ninth that convention met. On the thirtieth, 
the conspirators reassembled — again at the house of David 
Dudley Field — and Andrew attended. He had not com- 
mitted himself either way. 

And now Lincoln's firmness with the Executive Com- 
mittee had its reward. The New Englanders had made 
up their minds. Personally, he was still obnoxious to 
them; but in light of his recent pronouncement, they would 
take their chances on "rescuing" him from the Committee; 
and since he would not withdraw, they would not co- 
operate in splitting the Union party. But they could not 
convince the conspirators. A long debate ended in an 
agreement to disagree. The New Englanders withdrew, 
confessed partisans of Lincoln. ^*^ It was the beginning of 
the end. 

Andrew went back to Boston to organize New Eng- 
land for Lincoln. J. M. Forbes remained to organize 
New York.^^ All this, Ignoring the Executive Com.mittee. 
It was a new Lincoln propaganda, not in opposition to the 
Committee but in frank rivalry. "Since, or if, we must 




© Robcrl Jiruce. ICsq,, Cliiiton. Oiuida Counli/, New Yo'k 

The Last Phase of Lineoha 



THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT 385 

have Lincoln," said Andrew, "men of motive and ideas 
must get into the lead, must elect him, get hold of 'the 
machine' and 'run it' themselves. ''^- 

The bottom was out of the conspiracy; but the leaders 
at New York were slow to yield. Despite the New Eng- 
land secession, they thought the Democratic platform, on 
which McClellan had been invited to stand as candidate 
for the Presidency, gave them another chance, especially 
the famous resolution: 

''That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the 
sense of the American people, after four years of failure 
to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during 
which, under the pretense of a military necessity, or war 
power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself 
has been disregarded in every part, and the public liberty 
and the private right alike trodden down and the material 
prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, 
humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand that im- 
mediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with 
a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or other 
peaceable means to the end that at the earliest practicable 
moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal 
Union of the States." 

Some of the outlying conspirators also suffered a re- 
vival of hope. The Cincinnati Gacctte came out flat foot 
for the withdrawal of Lincoln. ^^ So did The Cincinnati 
Times, pressing hard for the new convention. ^^ On the 
second of September, three New York editors, Greeley for 
The Tribune, Parke Godwin for The Post, and Tilton for 
The Independent, were busily concocting a circular letter 
to Governors of the States with a view to saving the con- 
spiracy.^'* 



386 LINCOLN 

But other men were at work in a different fashion, 
that same day. Lincoln's cause had been wrecked so fre- 
quently by his generals that whenever a general advanced 
it, the event seems boldly dramatic. While the politicians 
at New York and Chicago thought they were loading the 
scales of fate, long lines of men in blue were moving 
through broken woodland and over neglected fields against 
the gray legions defending Atlanta. Said General Hood, 
it was "evident that General Sherman was moving with 
his main body to destroy the Macon road, and that the 
fate of Atlanta depended on our ability to defeat this 
movement." During the fateful pow-pow at the house 
of Dudley Field, Sherman's army like a colossal scythe 
was swinging round Atlanta, from the west and south, 
across Flint River, through the vital railwa)^ on toward 
the city. On the second of September, the news that At- 
lanta was taken "electrified the people of the North."^^ 

The first thought of every political faction, when, on 
the third, the newspapers were ringing with this great 
news, was either how to capitalize it for themselves, or 
how to forestall its capitalization by some one else. Forbes 
"dashed off" a letter to Andrew urging an immediate 
demonstration for Lincoln,^ ^ He was sure the Rayniond 
group would somehow try to use the victory as a basis for 
recovering their leadership. Davis was eager to issue the 
"call" at once.^^ But his fellows hesitated. And while 
they hesitated, Andrew and the people acted. On the sixth, 
a huge Lincoln rally was held at Faneul Hall. Andrew 
presided. Sumner spoke.^^ That same day, Vermont held 
State elections and went Republican by a rousing majority. 
On the day following occurred the convention of the Union 
party of New York. Enthusiastic applause was elicited 



THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT 387 

by a telegram from Vermont. "The first shell that was 
thrown by Sherman into Atlanta has exploded in the Cop- 
perhead Camp in this State, and the Unionists have poured 
in a salute with shotted guns."-*' The mixed metaphors 
did not reduce the telegram's effect. The New York Con- 
vention formally endorsed Lincoln as the candidate of the 
Union party for President. 

So much for the serious side of the swiftly changing 
political kaleidoscope. There was also a comic side. Only 
three days sufficed — from Davis's eagerness to proceed on 
the fourth to letters and articles written or printed on the 
seventh — only three days, and the leaders of the conspiracy 
began turning their coats. A t3''pical letter of the seventh 
dated at Syracuse describes "an interview with Mr. Op- 
dyke this morning, who told me the result of his efforts 
to obtain signatures to our call which was by no means 
encouraging. I have found the same sentiment prevail- 
ing here. A belief that it is too late to make any effectual 
demonstration, and therefore that it is not wise to attempt 
any. I presume that the new-born enthusiasm created by 
the Atlanta news will so encourage Lincoln that he can not 
be persuaded to withdraw."-^ Two days more and the 
anti-Lincoln newspapers began to draw in their horns. 
That Independent, whose editor had been one of the three 
in the last ditch but a week before, handsomely recanted, 
scuttling across to what now seemed the winning side. 
"The prospect of victory is brilliant. If a fortnight ago 
the prospect of Mr. Lincoln's reelection seemed doubtful, 
the case is now changed. The odious character of the Chi- 
cago platform, the sunshiny effect of the late victories, have 
rekindled the old enthusiasm in loyal hearts."^^ One day 
more, and Greeley sullenly took his medicine. The 



388 LINCOLN 

Tribune began printing "The Union Ticket — for Presi- 
dent, Abraham Lincoln." 

There remains the most diverting instance of the haste 
with which coats were turned. On the sixth of Septem- 
ber, only three days after Atlanta ! — the very day of the 
great Lincoln rally, the crown of Andrew's generalship, at 
Fanuel Hall — a report was sent out from Washington that 
"Senator Wade is to take the stump for Mr. Lincoln."^-^ 
Less than a week later The Washington Chronicle had 
learned "with satisfaction, though not with surprise, that 
Senator Wade, notwithstanding his signature to a cele- 
brated Manifesto, had enrolled himself among the Lincoln 
forces."^* Exactly two weeks after Atlanta, Wade made 
his first speech for Lincoln as President. It was a "terrific 
assault upon the Copperhead policy. "^^ 

The ship of the conspiracy was sinking fast, and on 
every hand was heard a scurrying patter of escaping — 
politicians. 



XXXIV 



FATHER ABRAHAM 



The key-notes of Lincoln's course with the Executive 
Committee — his refusal to do anything that appeared to 
him to be futile, his firmness not to cast about and experi- 
ment after a policy, his basing of all his plans on the vision 
in his own mind of their sure fruitage — these continued 
to be his key-notes throughout the campaign. They ruled 
his action in a difficult matter with which he was quickly 
forced to deal. 

Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster General, was widely 
and bitterly disliked. Originally a radical Republican, he 
had quarreled with that wing of the party. In 1863 the 
Union League of Philadelphia, which elected all the rest 
of the Cabinet honorary members of its organization, 
omitted Blair. A reference to the Cabinet in the Union 
platform of 1864 was supposed to be a hint that the Post- 
master General would serve his country, if he resigned. 
During the dark days of the summer of 1864, the Presi- 
dent's mail was filled with supplications for the dismissal 
of Blair. ^ He was described as an incubus that might 
cause the defeat of the Administration. 

If the President's secretaries were not prejudiced wit- 
nesses, Blair had worn out his welcome in the Cabinet. 
He had grown suspicious. He tried to make Lincoln be- 
lieve that Seward was plotting with the Copperheads. 
Nevertheless, Lincoln turned a deaf ear to the clamor 

389 



390 LINCOLN 

against him. ^Merely personal considerations were not 
compelling. If it was true, as for a while he believed it 
was, that his election was already lost, he did not pro- 
pose to throw Blair over as a mere experiment. True to 
his principles he would not become a juggler with futility. 

The turn of the tide in his favor put the matter in a 
new light. All the enemies of Blair renewed their attack 
on a slightly different line. One of those powerful Xew 
Englanders who had come to Lincoln's aid at such an 
opportune moment led off. On the second day following 
the news of Atlanta, Henry Wilson wrote to him, "Blair, 
every one hates. Tens of thousands of men will be lost 
to you, or will give you a reluctant vote because of the 
Blairs."- 

If this was really true, the selfless man would not 
hesitate to require of Blair the same sort of sacrifice he 
would, in other conditions, require of himself. Lincoln 
debated this in his own mind nearly three weeks. 

Meanwhile, various other politicians joined the hue and 
cry. An old friend of Lincoln's, Ebenezer Peck, came east 
from Illinois to work upon him against Blair. ^ Chandler, 
who like Wade was eager to get out of the wTong ship, ap- 
peared at Washington as a friend of the Administration 
and an enemy of Blair.'* But still Lincoln did not respond. 
After all, was it certain that one of these votes would 
change if Blair did not resign? Would anything be ac- 
complished, should Lincoln require his resignation, except 
the humiliation of a friend, the gratification of a pack of 
malcontents? And then some one thought of a mode for 
giving definite political value to Blair's removal. Who 
did it? The anonymous author of tlie only biography of 
Chandler claims this doubtful honor for the great Jacobin. 



"FATHER ABR.\HAM" 391 

Lincoln's secretaries, including Colonel Stoddard who had 
charge of his correspondence, are ignorant on the subject.^ 
It may well have been Chandler who negotiated a bargain 
with Fremont, if the stor\- is to be trusted, w-hich con- 
cerned Blair. A long-standing, relentless quarrel sepa- 
rated these two. That Fremont as a candidate was nobody 
had long been apparent ; and yet it was worth while to get 
rid of him. Chandler, or another, extracted a promise 
from Fremont that if Blair were removed, he would re- 
sign. On the strength of this promise, a last appeal was 
made to Lincoln. Such is the legend. The known fact 
is that on September twenty-second Fremont withdrew 
his candidac}-. The next day Lincoln sent this note to 
Blair : 

"You have generously said to me more than once that 
whenever your resignation could be a relief to me, it was 
at mv disposal. The time has come. You verv' well know- 
that this proceeds from no dissatisfaction of mine, with you 
personally or officially. Your uniform kindness has been 
unsurpassed by that of any friend. . . ."® 

Xo incident displays more clearly the hold which Lin- 
coln had acquired on the confidence and the affection of 
his immediate associates. Blair at once tendered his res- 
ignation : 'T can not take leave of you," said he, "without 
renewing the expression of my gratitude for the uni- 
form kindness which has marked your course with 
regard to myself."" That he was not perfunctory-, that his 
great chief had acquired over him an ascendenc}- which was 
superior to any strain, was demonstrated a few days later 
in Xew York. On the twent\--seventh. Cooper Institute 
was filled with an enthusiastic Lincoln meeting. Blair 
was a speaker. He was received with loud cheers and took 



392 LINCOLN 

occasion to touch upon his relations with the President. 
"I retired," said he, "on the recommendation of my own 
father. My father has passed that period of Hfe when its 
honors or its rewards, or its glories have any charm for 
him. He looks backward only, and forward only, to the 
grandeur of this nation and the happiness of this great 
people who have grown up under the prosperous condition 
of the Union; and he would not permit a son of his to 
stand in the way of the glorious and patriotic President 
who leads us on to success and to the final triumph that is 
in store for us."^ 

It was characteristic of this ultimate Lincoln that he 
offered no explanations, even in terminating the career of 
a minister; that he gave no confidences. Gently inexorable, 
he imposed his will in apparent unconsciousness that it 
might be questioned. Along with his overmastering kind- 
ness, he had something of the objectivity of a natural force. 
It was the mood attained by a few extraordinary men who 
have reached a point where, without becoming egoists, they 
no longer distinguish between themselves and circumstance; 
the mood of those creative artists who have lost them- 
selves, in the strange way which the dreamers have who 
have also found themselves. 

Even in the new fascination of the probable turn of the 
tide, Lincoln did not waver in his fixed purpose to give all 
his best energies, and the country's best energies, to the 
war. In October, there was a new panic over the draft. 
Cameron implored him to suspend it in Pennsylvania until 
after the presidential election. An Ohio committee went 
to Washington with the same request. Why should not 
the arguments that had prevailed with him, or were sup- 
posed to have prevailed with him, for the removal of a 



"FATHER ABRAHAM" 393 

minister, prevail also in the way of a brief flagging of mili- 
tary preparation? But Lincoln would not look upon the 
two cases in the same spirit. "What is the Presidency 
worth to me," he asked the Ohio committee, "if I have no 
country?"® 

From the active campaign he held himself aloof. He 
made no political speeches. He wrote no political letters. 
The army received his constant detailed attention. In his 
letters to Grant, he besought him to be unwavering in a 
relentless persistency. 

As Ha}^ records, he was aging rapidly. The immense 
strain of his labor was beginning to tell both in his features 
and his expression. He was moving in a shadow. But his 
old habit of merriment had not left him; though it was 
now, more often, a surface merriment. On the night of 
the October elections, Lincoln sat in the telegraph room of 
the War Office while the reports were coming in. "The 
President in a lull of despatches, took from his pocket the 
Naseby Papers and read several chapters of the Saint and 
Martyr, Petroleum V. They were innnensely amusing. 
Stanton and Dana enjoyed them scarcely less than the 
President, who read on, con amore, until nine o'clock."^ '^ 

The presidential election was held on the eighth of No- 
vember. That night, Lincoln with his Secretary was again 
in the War Office. The early returns showed that the 
whole North was turning to him in enormous majorities. 
He showed no exultation. When the Assistant Secretary 
of the Navy spoke sharply of the complete effacement po- 
litically of Henry Winter Davis against whom he had a 
grudge, Lincoln said, "You have more of that feeling of 
personal resentment than I. Perhaps I have too little of it ; 
but I never thought it paid. A man has no time to spend 



394 LINCOLN 

half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me 
I never remember the past against him."^^ 

"Towards midnight," says Hay in his diary, "we had 
supper. The President went awkwardly and hospitably to 
work shovelling out the fried oysters. He was most agree- 
able and genial all the evening. . . . Captain Thomas 
came up with a band about half -past two and made some 
music. The President answered from a window with rather 
unusual dignity and effect, and v/e came home."^^ 

"I am thankful to God," Lincoln said, in response to 
the serenade, "for this approval of the people; but while 
grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know 
my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal 
triumph. I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed 
to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one, 
but I give thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the 
people's resolution to stand by free government and the 
rights of humanity. "^^ 

During the next few days a torrent of congratulations 
came pouring in. What most impressed the secretaries 
was his complete freedom from elation. "He seemed to 
deprecate his own triumph and sympathize rather with the 
beaten than the victorious party." His formal recognition 
of the event was a prepared reply to a serenade on the 
night of November tenth. A great crowd filled the space 
in front of the north portico of the White House. Lin- 
coln appeared at a window. A secretary stood at his side 
holding a lighted candle while he read from a manuscript. 
The brief address is justly ranked among his ablest occa- 
sional utterances. As to the mode of the deliverance, he 
said to Hay, "Not very graceful, but I am growing old 
enough not to care much for the manner of doing things."^* 



XXXV 

THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT 

In Lincoln's life there are two great achievements. 
One he brought to pass in time for him to behold his own 
victory. The other he saw only with the eyes of faith. 
The first was the drawing together of all the elements of 
nationalism in the American people and consolidating them 
into a driving force. The second was laying the founda- 
tion of a political temper that made impossible a permanent 
victory for the Vindictives. It was the sad fate of this 
nation, because Lincoln's hand was struck from the tiller 
at the very instant of the crisis, to suffer the temporary suc- 
cess of that faction he strove so hard to destroy. The tran- 
sitoriness of their evil triumph, the eventual rally of the 
nation against them, was the final victory of the spirit of 
Lincoln. 

The immediate victory he appreciated more fully and 
measured more exactly, than did any one else. He put it 
into words in the fifth message. While others were crow- 
ing with exaltation over a party triumph, he looked deeper 
to the psychological triumph. Scarcely another saw that 
the most significant detail of the hour was in the Demo- 
cratic attitude. Even the bitterest enemies of nationalism, 
even those who were believed by all others to desire the 
breaking of the Union, had not thought it safe to say so. 
They had veiled their intent in specious words. McClellan 
in accepting the Democratic nomination had repudiated the 

395 



396 LINCOLN 

idea of disunion. Whether the Democratic politicians had 
agreed with him or not, they had not dared to contradict 
him. This was what Lincoln put the emphasis on in his 
message: "The purpose of the people within the loyal 
States to maintain the Union was never more firm nor 
more nearly unanimous than now. . . . No candidate 
for any office, high or low, has ventured to seek votes on the 
avowal that he was for giving up the Union. There have 
been much impugning of motive and much heated contro- 
versy as to the proper means and best mode of advancing 
the Union cause; but on the distinct issue of Union or No 
Union the politicians have shown their instinctive knowl- 
edge that there is no diversity among the people. In afford- 
ing the people the fair opportunity of showing one to an- 
other and to the world, this firmness and unanimity of 
purpose, the election has been of vast value to the national 
cause. "^ 

This temper of the final Lincoln, his supreme detach- 
ment, the kind impersonality of his intellectual approach, 
has no better illustration in his state papers. He further 
revealed it in a more intimate way. The day he sent the 
message to Congress, he also submitted to the Senate a 
nomination to the great office of Chief Justice. When 
Taney died in the previous September, there was an eager 
stir among the friends of Chase. They had hopes but they 
felt embarrassed. Could they ask this great honor, the 
highest it is In the power of the American President to be- 
stow, for a man who had been so lacking in candor as 
Chase had been? Chase's course during the summer had 
made things worse. He had played the time-server. No 
one was more severe upon Lincoln in July; in August, he 
hesitated, would not quite commit himself to the conspiracy. 



THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT 397 

but would not discourage it; almost gave it his blessing; 
in September, but not until it was quite plain that the con- 
spiracy was failing, he came out for Lincoln. However, 
his friends in the Senate overcame their embarrassment — 
how else could it be with Senators? — and pressed his case. 
And when Senator Wilson, alarmed at the President's si- 
lence, tried to apologize for Chase's harsh remarks about 
the President, Lincoln cut him short. "Oh, as to that, I 
care nothing," said he. The embarrassment of the Chase 
propaganda amused him. When Chase himself took a hand 
and wrote him a letter, Lincoln said to his secretary, "What 
is it about?" "Simply a kind and friendly letter," repHed 
the secretaiy. Lincoln smiled. "File it with the other 
recommendations," said he.^ 

He regarded Chase as a great lawyer, Taney's logical 
successor. All the slights the Secretary had put upon the 
President, the intrigues to supplant him, the malicious say- 
ings, were as if they had never occiUTed. When Congress 
assembled, it was Chase's name that he sent to the Senate. 
It was Chase who, as Chief Justice, administered the oath 
at Lincoln's second inauguration. 

Long since, Lincoln had seen that there had ceased to 
be any half-way house in the matter of emancipation. His 
thoughts were chiefly upon the future. And as mere strat- 
egy, he saw that slavery had to be got out of the way. It 
was no longer a cjuestion, who liked this, who did not. To 
him, the ultimate issue was the restoration of harmony 
among the States. Those States which had been defeated 
in the dread arbitrament of battle, would in any event en- 
counter difficulties, even deadly perils, in the narrow way 
which must come after defeat and which might or might 
not lead to rehabilitation. 



398 LINCOLN 

Remembering the Vindictive temper, remembering the 
force and courage of the Vindictive leaders, it was impera- 
tive to clear the field of the slavery issue before the recon- 
struction issue was fairly launched. It was highly desira- 
ble to commit to the support of the governments the whole 
range of influences that were in earnest about emancipa- 
tion. Furthermore, the South itself was drifting in the 
same direction. In his interview with Gilmore and Jaquess, 
Davis had said : "You have already emancipated nearly two 
millions of our slaves; and if you will take care of them, 
you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war 
began. I was of some use to them; they never were of 
any to me."^ 

The Southern President had "felt" his constituency on 
the subject of enrolling slaves as soldiers with a promise 
of emancipation as the reward of military service. 

The fifth message urged Congress to submit to the 
States an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. 
Such action had been considered in the previous session, 
but nothing had been done. At Lincoln's suggestion, it had 
been recommended in the platform of the Union party. 
Now, with the President's powerful influence behind it, 
with his prestige at full circle, the amendment was rapidly 
pushed forward. Before January ended, it had been ap- 
proved by both Houses. Lincoln had used all his personal 
influence to strengthen its chances in Congress where, until 
the last minute, the vote was still in doubt. ^ 

While the amendment was taking its way through Con- 
gress, a shrewd old politician who thought he knew the 
world better than most men, that Montgomery Blair, Se- 
nior, who was father of the Postmaster General, had been 
trying on his own responsibility to open negotiations be- 



THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT 399 

tween Washington and Richmond. His visionary ideas, 
which were wholly without the results he intended, have 
no place here. And yet this fanciful episode had a signifi- 
cance of its own. Had it not occurred, the Confederate 
government probably would not have appointed commis- 
sioners charged with the hopeless task of approaching the 
Federal government for the purpose of negotiating peace 
between "the two countries." 

Now that Lincoln was entirely in the ascendent at 
home, and since the Confederate arms had recently suffered 
terrible reverses, he was no longer afraid that negotiation 
might appear to be the symptom of weakness. He went so 
far as to consent to meet the commissioners himself. On a 
steamer in Hampton Roads, Lincoln and Seward had a long 
conference with three members of the Confederate gov- 
ernment, particularly the Vice-President, Alexander H. 
Stephens. 

It has become a tradition that Lincoln wrote at the top 
of a sheet of paper the one word "Union" ; that he pushed 
it across the table and said, "Stephens, write under that 
anything you want." There appears to be no foundation 
for the tale in this form. The amendment had committed 
the North too definitely to emancipation. Lincoln could 
not have proposed Union without requiring emancipation, 
also. And yet, with this limitation, the spirit of the tradi- 
tion is historic. There can be no doubt that he presented 
to the commissioners about the terms which the year before 
he had drawn up as a memorandum for Gilmore and 
Jaquess: Union, the acceptance of emancipation, but also 
instantaneous restoration of political autonomy to the 
Southern States, and all the influence of the Administra- 
tion in behalf of liberal compensation for the loss of slave 



400 LINCOLN 

property. But the commissioners had no authority to 
consider terms that did not recognize the existence of "two 
countries." 

However, this Hampton Roads Conference gave Lin- 
coln a new hope. He divined, if he did not perceive, that 
the Confederates were on the verge of despair. If he had 
been a Vindictive, this would have borne fruit in ferocious 
telegrams to his generals to strike and spare not. What 
Lincoln did was to lay before the Cabinet this proposal : 
that they advise Congress to offer the Confederate govern- 
ment the sum of four hundred million dollars, provided the 
war end and the States in secession acknowledge the 
authority of the Federal government previous to April i, 
1865. But the Cabinet, complete as was his domination in 
some respects, were not ripe for such a move as this. " 'You 
are all against me,' said Lincoln sadly and in evident sur- 
prise at the want of statesmanlike liberality on the part of 
the executive council," to quote his Secretary, "folded and 
laid away the draft of his message."^ Nicolay believes that 
the idea continued vividly in his mind and that it may be 
linked with his last public utterance — "it may be my duty 
to make some new announcement to the people of the 
South. I am considering and shall not fail to act when 
satisfied that action is proper." 

It was now obvious to ever}^ one outside the Confed- 
eracy that the war would end speedily in a Northern vic- 
tory. To Lincoln, therefore, the duty of the moment, 
overshadowing all else, was the preparation for what 
should come after. Reconstruction. More than ever it 
was of first Importance to decide whether the President or 
Congress should deal with this great matter. And now 
occurred an event which bore witness at once to the be- 



THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT 401 

ginning of Lincoln's final struggle with the Vindictives and 
to that personal ascendency which was steadily widening. 
One of those three original Jacobins agreed to become his 
spokesman in the Senate. As the third person of the 
Jacobin brotherhood, Lyman Trumbull had always been 
out of place. He had gone wrong not from perversity of 
the soul but from a mental failing, from the lack of in- 
herent light, from intellectual conventionality. But he was 
a good man. One might apply to him Mrs. Browning's 
line: "Just a good man made a great man." And in his 
case, as in so many others, sheer goodness had not been 
sufficient in the midst of a revolution to save his soul. To 
quote one of the greatest of the observers of human life: 
"More brains, O Lord, more brains." Though Trumbull 
had the making of an Intellectual, politics had very nearly 
ruined him. For all his good intentions it took him a 
long time to see what Hawthorne saw at first sight — that 
Lincoln was both a powerful character and an original 
mind. Still, because Trumbull was really a good man, he 
found a way to recover his soul. What his insight was 
not equal to perceiving in 1861, experience slowly made 
plain to him in the course of the next three years. Before 
1865 he had broken with the Vindictives; he had come 
over to Lincoln. Trumbull still held the powerful office of 
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He now 
undertook to be the President's captain in a battle on the 
floor of the Senate for tlie recognition of Louisiana. 

The new government in Louisiana had been in actual 
operation for nearly a year. Though Congress had de- 
nounced it; though the Manifesto had held it up to scorn 
as a monarchial outrage; Lincoln had quietly, steadily, pro- 
tected and supported it. It was discharging the functions 



402 LINCOLN 

of a regular State government. A governor had been 
elected and inaugurated — that Governor Hahn whom Lin- 
coln had congratulated as Louisiana's first Free State Gov- 
ernor. He could say this because the new electorate which 
his mandate had created had assembled a constitutional 
convention and had abolished slavery. And it had also 
carried out the President's views with regard to the polit- 
ical status of freedmen. Lincoln was not a believer in 
general negro suffrage. He was as far as ever from the 
theorizing of the Abolitionists. The most he would ap- 
prove was the bestowal of suffrage on a few superior 
negroes, leaving the rest to be gradually educated into 
citizenship. The Louisiana Convention had authorized the 
State Legislature to make, when it felt prepared to do so, 
such a limited extension of suffrage.^ 

In setting up this new government, Lincoln had created 
a political vessel in which practically all the old electorate 
of Louisiana could find their places the moment they gave 
up the war and accepted the two requisites, union and 
emancipation. That electorate could proceed at once to 
rebuild the social-political order of the State without any 
interval of "expiation." All the power of the Adminis- 
tration would be with them in their labors. That this was 
the wise as well as the generous way to proceed, the best 
minds of the North had come to see. Witness the con- 
version of Trumbull. But there were four groups of 
fanatics who were dangerous : extreme Abolitionists who 
clamored for negro equality ; men like Wade and Chandler, 
still mad with the lust of conquest, raging at the President 
who had stood so resolutely between them and their de- 
sire ; the machine politicians who could never understand 
the President's methods, who regarded him as an officious 



THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT 403 

amateur; and the Little Men who would have tried to 
make political capital of the blowing of the last trump. 
All these, each for a separate motive, attacked the Presi- 
dent because of Louisiana. 

The new government had chosen Senators. Here was 
a specific issue over which the Administration and its 
multiform opposition might engage in a trial of strength. 
The Senate had it in its power to refuse to seat the Louisi- 
ana Senators. Could the Vindictive leaders induce it to 
go to that length? The question took its natural course of 
reference to the Judiciary Committee. On the eighteenth 
of February, Trumbull opened what was destined to be a 
terrible chapter in American history, the struggle between 
light and darkness over reconstruction. Trumbull had 
ranged behind Lincoln the majority of his committee. 
With its authority he moved a joint resolution recognizing 
the new government of Louisiana.'^ 

And then began a battle royal. Trumbull's old asso- 
ciates were promptly joined by Sumner. These three 
rallied against the resolution all the malignancy, all the 
time-serving, all the stupidity, which the Senate possessed. 
Bitter language was exchanged by men who had formerly 
been as thick as thieves. 

"You and I," thundered Wade, "did not differ formerly 
on this subject. We considered it a mockery, a miserable 
mockery, to recognize this Louisiana organization as a State 
in the Union." He sneered fiercely, "Whence comes this 
new-born zeal of the Senator from Illinois? . . . Sir, 
it is the most miraculous conversion that has taken place 
since Saint Paul's time." 

Wade did not spare the President. Metaphorically 
speaking, he shook a fist in his face, the fist of a merciless 



464 LINCOLN 

old giant "When the foundation of this government is 
sought to be swept away by executive usurpation, it will 
not do to turn around to me and say this comes from a 
President I helped to elect. ... If the President of 
the United States operating through his major generals 
can initiate a State government, and can bring it here and 
force us, compel us, to receive on this floor these mere 
mockeries, these men of straw who represent nobody, your 
Republic is at an end . . . talk not to me of your 
ten per cent, principle. A more absurd, monarchial and 
anti-American principle was never announced on God's 
earth. "^ 

Amidst a rain of furious personalities, Lincoln's 
spokesman kept his poise. It was sorely tried by two 
things : by Sumner's frank use of every device of parlia- 
mentary obstruction with a view to wearing out the 
patience of the Senate, and by the cynical alliance, in order 
to balk Lincoln, of the Vindictives with the Democrats. 
What they would not risk in 1862 when their principles 
had to wait upon party needs, they now considered safe 
strategy. And if ever the Little Men deserved their label 
it was when they played into the hands of the terrible Vin- 
dictives, thus becoming responsible for the rejection of 
Lincoln's plan of reconstruction. Trumbull upbraided 
Sumner for "associating himself with those whom he so 
often denounced, for the purpose of calling the yeas and 
nays and making dilatory motions" to postpone action 
until the press of other business should compel the Senate 
to set the resolution aside. Sumner's answer was that he 
would employ against the measure every instrument he 
could find "in the arsenal of parliamentary warfare." 



THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT 405 

With the aid of the Democrats, the Vindictives carried the 
day. The resolution was "dispensed with."^ 

As events turned out it was a catastrophe. But this 
was not apparent at the time. Though Lincoln had been 
beaten for the moment, the opposition was made up of so 
many and such irreconcilable elements that as long as he 
could hold together his own following, there was no rea- 
son to suppose he would not in the long run prevail. He 
was never in a firmer, more self-contained mood than on 
the last night of the session. ^*^ Again, as on that memor- 
able fourth of July, eight months before, he was in his 
room at the Capitol signing the last-minute bills. Stanton 
was with him. On receiving a telegram from Grant, the 
Secretary handed it to the President. Grant reported that 
Lee had proposed a conference for the purpose of "a satis- 
factory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties by 
means of a military convention." Without asking for the 
Secretary's opinion, Lincoln wrote out a reply which he 
directed him to sign and despatch immediately. "The 
President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no 
conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitula- 
tion of General Lee's army, or on some minor or purely 
military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not 
to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political questions, 
such questions the President holds in his own hands and 
will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. 
Meanwhile, }'ou are to press to the utmost your military 
advantages."^ ^ 

In the second inaugural'- delivered the next day, there 
is not the faintest shadow of anxiety. It breathes a lofty 
confidence as if his soul was gazing meditatively down- 



4o6 LINCOLN 

ward upon life, and upon his own work, from a secure 
height. The world has shown a sound instinct in fixing 
upon one expression, "with malice toward none, with 
charity for all," as the key-note of the final Lincoln, These 
words form the opening line of that paragraph of unsur- 
passable prose in which the second inaugural culminates : 
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with 
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the 
nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the 
battle, and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among 
ourselves, and with all nations." 



XXXVI 

PREPARING A DIFFERENT WAR 

During the five weeks which remained to Lincoln on 
earth, the army was his most obvious concern. He watched 
eagerly the closing of the enormous trap that had been 
slowly built up surrounding Lee. Toward the end of 
March he went to the front, and for two weeks had his 
quarters on a steamer at City Point. It was during Lin- 
coln's visit that Sherman came up from North Carolina 
for his flying conference with Grant, in which the Presi- 
dent took part. Lincoln was at City Point when Peters- 
burg fell. Early on the morning of April third, he joined 
Grant who gives a strange glimpse in his Memoirs of 
their meeting in the deserted city which so recently had 
been the last bulwark of the Confederacy.* The same 
day, Richmond fell. Lincoln had returned to City Point, 
and on the following day when confusion reigned in the 
burning city, he walked through its streets attended only 
by a few sailors and by four friends. He visited Libby 
Prison; and when a member of his party said that Davis 
ought to be hanged, Lincoln replied, "Judge not that ye be 
not judged. "2 His deepest thoughts, however, were not 
with the army. The time was at hand when his states- 
manship was to be put to its most severe test. He had not 
forgotten the anxious lesson of that success of the Vin- 
•dictives in balking momentarily the recognition of Louisi- 
ana. It was war to the knife between him and them. 



4o8 LINCOLN 

Could he reconstruct the Union in a wise and merciful 
fashion despite their desperate opposition? 

He had some strong cards in his hand. First of all, he 
had time. Congress was not in session. He had eight 
months in which to press forward his own plans. If, when 
Congress assembled the following December, it should be 
confronted by a group of reconciled Southern States, would 
it venture to refuse them recognition? No one could have 
any illusions as to what the Vindictives would try to do. 
They would continue the struggle they had begun over 
Louisiana; and if their power permitted, they would rouse 
the nation to join battle with the President on that old 
issue of the war powers, of the dictatorship. 

But in Lincoln's hand there were four other cards, all 
of which Wade and Chandler would find it hard to match. 
He had the army. In the last election the army had voted 
for him enthusiastically. And the army was free from 
the spirit of revenge, the spirit which Chandler built upon. 
He had the plain people, the great mass whom the machine 
politicians had failed to judge correctly in the August Con- 
spiracy. Pretty generally, he had the Intellectuals. Lastly, 
he had — or with skilful generalship he could have — the 
Abolitionists. 

The Thirteenth Amendment was not yet adopted. The 
question had been raised, did it require three-fourths of 
all the States for its adoption, or only three-fourths of 
those that were ranked as not in rebellion. Here was the 
issue by means of which the Abolitionists might all be 
brought into line. It was by no means certain that every 
Northern State would vote for the amendment. In the 
smaller group of States, there was a chance that the 
amendment might fail. But if it were submitted to the 



PREPARING A DIFFERENT WAR 409 

larger group; and if every Reconstructed State, before 
Congress met, should adopt the amendment; and if it was 
apparent that with these Southern adoptions the amend- 
ment must prevail, all the great power of the anti-slavery 
sentiment w^ould be thrown on the side of the President in 
favor of recognizing the new State governments and against 
the Vindictives. Lincoln held a hand of trumps. Confi- 
dently, but not rashly, he looked forward to his peaceful 
war with the Vindictives. 

They were enemies not to be despised. To begin with, 
they were experienced machine politicians; they had con- 
trol of well-organized political rings. They were past 
masters of the art of working up popular animosities. 
And they were going to use this art in that dangerous 
moment of reaction which invariably follows the heroic 
tension of a great war. The alignment in the Senate re- 
vealed by the Louisiana battle had also a significance. 
The fact that Sumner, who was not quite one of them, 
became their general on that occasion, was something to 
remember. They had made or thought they had made 
other powerful allies. The Vice President, Andrew John- 
son — the new president of the Senate — appeared at this 
time to be cheek by jowl with the fiercest Vindictives of 
them all. It would be interesting to know when the 
thought first occurred to them: "If anything should hap- 
pen to Lincoln, his successor would be one of us!" 

The ninth of April arrived and the news of Lee's sur- 
render. 

"The popular excitement over the victory was such 
that on Monday, the tenth, crowds gathered before the 
Executive Mansion several times during the day and called 
out the President for speeches. Twice he responded by 



4IO LINCOLN 

coming to the window and saying a few words which, 
however, indicated that his mind was more occupied with 
work than with exuberant rejoicing. As briefly as he 
could he excused himself, but promised that on the fol- 
lowing evening for which a formal demonstration was be- 
ing arranged, he would be prepared to say something."^ 

The paper which he read to the crowd that thronged 
the grounds of the White House on the night of April 
eleventh, was his last public utterance. It was also one 
of his most remarkable ones. In a way, it was his declara- 
tion of war against the Vindictives.* It is the final state- 
ment of a policy toward helpless opponents — he refused 
to call them enemies — which among the conquerors of his- 
tory is hardly, if at all, to be paralleled.^ 

"By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 
national authority — reconstruction — which has had a large 
share of thought from the first, is pressed more closely 
upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. 
Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there 
is no authorized organ for us to treat with — no one man 
has authority to give up the rebellion for any other 
man. We simply must begin with, and mould from, dis- 
organized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small ad- 
ditional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ 
among ourselves as to the mode, manner and measure of 
reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain from reading 
the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be pro- 
voked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer. 
In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my 
knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed 
agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State 
government of Louisiana." 



PREPARING A DIFFERENT WAR 411 

He reviewed in full the history of the Louisiana ex- 
periment. From that he passed to the theories put forth 
by some of his enemies with regard to the constitutional 
status of the Seceded States. His own theory that the 
States never had been out of the Union because constitu- 
tionally they could not go out, that their governmental 
functions had merely been temporarily interrupted; this 
theory had always been roundly derided by the Vindictives 
and even by a few who were not Vindictives. Sumner 
had preached the idea that the Southern States by attempt- 
ing to secede had committed "State Suicide" and should 
now be treated as Territories. Stevens and the Vindictives 
generally, while avoiding Sumner's subtlety, called them 
"conc[uered provinces." And all these wanted to take 
them from under the protection of the President and place 
them helpless at the feet of Congress. To prevent this is 
the purpose that shines between the lines in the latter part 
of Lincoln's valedictory : 

"We all agree that the Seceded States, so called, are 
out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and 
that the sole object of the government, civil and military, 
in regard to those States, is to again get them into that 
proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only pos- 
sible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or 
even considering whetlier these States have ever been out 
of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at 
home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had 
ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts neces- 
sary to restoring the proper practical relations between 
these States and the Union, and each forever after inno- 
cently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts 
he brought the States from without into the Union, or only 



412 LINCOLN 

gave them proper assistance, they never having- been out 
of it. The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which 
the new Louisiana government rests would be more sat- 
isfactory to all if it contained 50,000 or 30,000, or even 
20,000 instead of only about 12,000, as it does. It is also 
unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not 
given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it 
were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those 
who served our cause as soldiers. 

"Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana gov- 
ernment, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The 
question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to 
improve it, or to reject and disperse it? Can Louisiana 
be brought into proper practical relation with the Union 
sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State gov- 
ernment? Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore 
slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the 
Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the 
State, held elections, organized a State government, adopted 
a free State constitution, giving the benefit of public 
schools equally to black and white and empowering the 
Legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the col- 
ored man. Their Legislature has already voted to ratify 
the constitutional amendment recently passed by Con- 
gress abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 
12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union and 
to perpetual freedom in the State — committed to the very 
things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants — and 
they ask the nation's recognition and its assistance to make 
good their committal. 

"Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost 
to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to 



PREPARING A DIFFERENT WAR 413 

the white man : You are worthless or worse ; we will nei- 
ther help you nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say : 
This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to 
your lips we will dash from you and leave you to the 
chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in 
some vague and undefined when, where and how. If this 
course, discouraging and paralyzing both white and black, 
has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical 
relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to per- 
ceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the 
new government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is 
made true. We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms 
of 12,000 to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and 
proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, 
and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man, too, 
in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance and 
energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant that he de- 
sires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by 
saving the already advanced steps toward it than by run- 
ning backward over them? Concede that the new govern- 
ment of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is 
to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the 
egg than by smashing it. 

"Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote 
in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Con- 
stitution. To meet this proposition it has been argued 
that no more than three-fourths of those States which 
have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify 
the amendment. I do not commit myself against this 
further than to say that such a ratification would be ques- 
tionable, and sure to be persistently questioned, while a 
ratification by three-fourths of all the States would be un- 



414 LINCOLN 

questioned and unquestionable. I repeat the question: 
Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation 
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her 
new State government? What has been said of Louisiana 
will apply generally to other States. And yet so great pe- 
culiarities pertain to each State, and such important and 
sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new 
and unprecedented is the whole case that no exclusive and 
inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and col- 
laterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely 
become a new entanglement. Important principles may 
and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the 
phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new an- 
nouncement to the people of the South. I am considering 
and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be 
proper.'* 



XXXVII 

FATE INTERPOSES 

There was an early spring on the Potomac in 1865. 
While April was still young, the Judas trees became spheres 
of purply, pinkish bloom. The Washington parks grew 
softly bright as the lilacs opened. Pendulous willows 
veiled with green laces afloat in air the changing brown 
that was winter's final shadow; in the Virginia woods the 
white blossoms of the dogwood seemed to float and flicker 
among the windy trees like enormous flocks of alighting 
butterflies. And over head such a glitter of turquoise 
blue! As lovely in a different way as on that fateful Sun- 
day morning when Russell drove through the same woods 
toward Bull Run so long, long ago. Such was the back- 
ground of the last few days of Lincoln's life. 

Though tranquil, his thoughts dwelt much on death. 
While at City Point, he drove one day with Mrs. Lincoln 
along the banks of the James. They passed a country 
graveyard. "It was a retired place," said Mrs. Lincoln 
long afterward, "shaded by trees, and early spring flowers 
were opening on nearly every grave. It was so quiet and 
attractive that we stopped the carriage and walked through 
it. Mr. Lincoln seemed thoughtful and impressed. He 
said : 'Mary, you are younger than I ; you will survive me. 
When I am gone, lay my remains in some quiet place like 
this.' "1 

415 



4i6 LINCOLN 

His mood underwent a mysterious change. It was 
serene and yet charged with a pecuhar grave loftiness not 
quite like any phase of him his friends had known hitherto. 
As always, his thoughts turned for their reflection to 
Shakespeare. Sumner who was one of the party at City 
Point, was deeply impressed by his reading aloud, a few 
days before his death, that passage in Macbeth which 
describes the ultimate security of Duncan where nothing 
evil "can touch him farther."- 

There was something a little startling, as if it were 
not quite of this world, in the tender lightness that seemed 
to come into his heart. "His whole appearance, poise and 
bearing," says one of his observers, "had marvelously 
changed. He was, in fact, transfigured. That indescrib- 
able sadness which had previously seemed to be an adaman- 
tine element of his very being, had been suddenly changed 
for an equally indescribable expression of serene joy, as if 
conscious that the great purpose of his life had been 
achieved."^ 

It was as if the seer in the trance had finally passed be- 
yond his trance; and had faced smiling toward his earthly 
comrades, imagining he was to return to them; unaware 
that somehow his emergence was not in the ordinary course 
of nature; that in it was an accent of the inexplicable, 
something which the others caught and at which they 
trembled; though they knew not why. And he, so beauti- 
fully at peace, and yet thrilled as never before by the vision 
of the murdered Duncan at the end of life's fitful fever — 
what was his real feeling, his real vision of himself? Was 
it something of what the great modern poet strove so 
bravely to express — < 



FATE INTERPOSES 417 

"And yet 
Dauntless the slughorn to my lips I set, 
And blew : Childe Roland to the dark tower came." 

Shortly before the end, he had a strange dream. 
Though he spoke of it almost with levity, it would not 
leave his thoughts. He dreamed he was wandering through 
the White House at night; all the rooms were brilliantly 
lighted; but they were empty. However, through that un- 
real solitude floated a sound of weeping. When he came to 
the East Room, it was explained; there was a catafalque, 
the pomp of a military funeral, crowds of people in tears; 
and a voice said to him, "The President has been assas- 
sinated." 

He told this dream to Lamon and to Mrs. Lincoln. He 
added that after it had occurred, "the first time I opened 
the Bible, strange as it may appear, it was at the twenty- 
eighth chapter of Genesis which relates the wonderful 
dream Jacob had. I turned to other passages and seemed 
to encounter a dream or a vision wherever I looked. I 
kept on turning the leaves of the Old Book, and everywhere 
my eye fell upon passages recording matters strangely in 
keeping with my own thoughts — supernatural visitations, 
dreams, visions, etc." 

But when Lamon seized upon this as text for his re- 
current sermon on precautions against assassination, Lin- 
coln turned the matter into a joke. He did not appear to 
interpret the dream as foreshadowing his own death. He 
called Lamon's alarm "downright foolishness."^ 

Another dream in the last night of his life was a con- 
solation. He narrated it to the Cabinet when they met 
on April fourteenth, which happened to be Good Friday. 
There was some anxiety with regard to Sherman's move- 



4i8 LINCOLN 

ments in North Carolina, Lincoln bade the Cabinet set 
their minds at rest. His dream of the night before was 
one that he had often had. It was a presage of great 
events. In this dream he saw himself "in a singular and 
indescribable vessel, but always the same . . . moving 
with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore." 
This dream had preceded all the great events of the war. 
He believed it was a good omen.^ 

At this last Cabinet meeting, he talked freely of the 
one matter which in his mind overshadowed all others. 
He urged his Ministers to put aside all thoughts of hatred 
and revenge. "He hoped there would be no persecution, 
no bloody work, after the war was over. None need ex- 
pect him to take any part in hanging or killing these men, 
even the worst of them. 'Frighten them out of the country, 
let down the bars, scare them off,' said he, throwing up 
his hands as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been 
sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentment if we ex- 
pect harmony and union. There was too much desire on 
the part of our very good friends to be masters, to inter- 
fere and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as 
fellow citizens; there was too little respect for their rights. 
He didn't sympathize in these feelings."^ 

There was a touch of irony in his phase "our very good 
friends." Before the end of the next day, the men he had 
in mind, the inner group of the relentless Vindictives, 
were to meet in council, scarcely able to conceal their in- 
spiring conviction that Providence had intervened, had 
judged between him and them.'^ And that allusion to the 
"rights" of the vanquished ! How abominable it was in 
the ears of the grim Chandler, the inexorable Wade. 
Desperate these men and their followers were on the four- 



FATE INTERPOSES 419 

teenth of April, but defiant. To the full measure of their 
power they would fight the President to the last ditch. 
And always in their minds, the tormenting thought — if 
only positions could be reversed, if only Johnson, whom 
they believed to be one of them at heart, were in the first 
instead of the second place! 

While these unsparing sons of thunder were growling 
among themselves, the lions that were being cheated of 
their prey, Lincoln was putting his merciful temper into a 
playful form. General Creswell applied to him for pardon 
for an old friend of his who had joined the Confederate 
Army. 

"Creswell," said Lincoln, "you make me think of a lot 
of young folks who once started out Maying. To reach 
their destination, they had to cross a shallow stream and 
did so by means of an old flat boat. When the time came 
to return, they found to their dismay that the old scow 
had disappeared. They w^ere in sore trouble and thought 
over all manner of devices for getting over the water, but 
without avail. After a time, one of the boys proposed 
that each fellow should pick up the girl he liked best and 
wade over with her. The masterly proposition was car- 
ried out until all that w^ere left upon the island w^as a little 
short chap and a great, long, gothic-built, elderly lady. 
Now, Creswell, you are trying to leave me in the same 
predicament. You fellows are all getting your own friends 
out of this scrape, and you will succeed in carrying off 
one after another until nobody but Jeff Davis and myself 
will be left on the island, and then I won't know what to 
do. How should I feel? How should I look lugging 
him over? I guess the way to avoid such an embarrass- 
ing situation is to let all out at once."® 



420 LINCOLN 

The President refused, this day, to open his doors to 
the throng of visitors that sought admission. His eldest 
son, Robert, an officer in Grant's army, had returned from 
the front unharmed. Lincoln wished to reserve the day 
for his family and intimate friends. In the afternoon, 
Mrs. Lincoln asked him if he pared to have company on 
their usual drive. "No, Mary," said he, "I prefer that we 
ride by ourselves to-day."^ They took a long drive. His 
mood, as it had been all day, was singularly happy and 
tender.^ *^ He talked much of the past and the future. 
It seemed to Mrs, Lincoln that he never had appeared hap- 
pier than during the drive. He referred to past sorrows, 
to the anxieties of the war, to Willie's death, and spoke of 
the necessity to be cheerful and happy in the days to come. 
As Mrs. Lincoln remembered his words: "We have had 
a hard time since we came to Washington; but the war is 
over, and with God's blessings, we may hope for four 
years of peace and happiness, and then we will go back to 
Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We have 
laid by some money, and during this time, we will save up 
more, but shall not have enough to support us. We will 
go back to Illinois; I will open a law office at Springfield 
or Chicago and practise law, and at least do enough to 
help give us a livelihood. "^^ 

They returned from their drive and prepared for a 
theatre party which had been fixed for that night. The 
management of the Ford's Theatre, where Laura Keene 
was to close her season with a benefit performance of Our 
American Cousin, had announced in the afternoon papers 
that "the President and his lady" would attend. The 
President's box had been draped with flags. The rest is 
a twice told tale — a thousandth told tale. 



FATE INTERPOSES 421 

An actor, very handsome, a Byronic sort, both in beauty 
and temperament, with a dash perhaps of insanity, John 
Wilkes Booth, had long meditated killing the President. 
A violent secessionist, his morbid imagination had made 
of Lincoln another Caesar. The occasion called for a 
Brutus. Wliile Lincoln was planning his peaceful war 
with the Vindictives, scheming how to keep them from 
grinding the prostrate South beneath their heels, devising 
modes of restoring happiness to the conquered region, 
Booth, at an obscure boarding-house in Washington, was 
gathering about him a band of adventurers, some of whom 
at least, like himself, were unbalanced. They meditated a 
general assassination of the Cabinet. The unexpected 
theatre party on the fourteenth gave Booth a sudden oppor- 
tunity. He knew every passage of Ford's Theatre. He 
knew, also, that Lincoln seldom surrounded himself with 
guards. During the afternoon, he made his way unob- 
served into the theatre and bored a hole in the door of the 
presidential box, so that he might fire through it should 
there be any difficulty in getting the door open. 

About ten o'clock that night, the audience was laugh- 
ing at the absurd play ; the President's party were as much 
amused as any. Suddenly, there w^as a pistol shot. A 
moment more and a woman's voice rang out in a sharp 
cry. An instant sense of disaster brought the audience 
startled to their feet. Two men were glimpsed struggling 
toward the front of the President's box. One broke away, 
leaped down on to the stage, flourished a knife and shouted, 
"Sic semper tyrannis!" Then he vanished through the 
flies. It was Booth, whose plans had been completely suc- 
cessful. He had made his way without interruption to 
within a few feet of Lincoln. At point-blank distance, he 



422 LINCOLN 

had shot him from behind, through the head. In the con- 
fusion which ensued, he escaped from the theatre; fled 
from the city; was pursued; and was himself shot and 
killed a few days later. 

The bullet of the assassin had entered the brain, caus- 
ing instant unconsciousness. The dying President was re- 
moved to a house on Tenth Street, No. 453, where he was 
laid on a bed in a small room at the rear of the hall on 
the ground floor.^^ 

Swift panic took possession of the city. "A crowd of 
people rushed instinctively to the White House, and burst- 
ing through the doors, shouted the dreadful news to Robert 
Lincoln and Major Hay who sat gossiping in an upper 
room. . . . They ran down-stairs. Finding a car- 
riage at the door, they entered it and drove to Tenth 
Street."i3 

To right and left eddied whirls of excited figures, men 
and women questioning, threatening, ciying out for venge- 
ance. Overhead amid driving clouds, the moon, through 
successive mantlings of darkness, broke periodically into 
sudden blazes of Hght; among the startled people below, 
raced a witches' dance of the rapidly changing shadows.-^* 

Lincoln did not regain consciousness. About dawn 
his pulse began to fail. A little later, "a look of unspeak- 
able peace came over his worn features"^^ and at twenty- 
two minutes after seven on the morning of the fifteenth 
of April, he died. 

THE END 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

It is said that a complete bibliography of Lincoln would include 
at least five thousand titles. Therefore, any limited bibliography must 
appear more or less arbitrary. The following is but a minimum list 
in which, with a few exceptions such as the inescapable interpretative 
works of Mr. Rhodes and of Professor Dunning, practically every- 
thing has to some extent the character of a source. 

Alexander. A Political History of the State of New York. By De 

Alva Stanwood Alexander. 3 vols. 1909. 
Arnold. History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery. 

By Isaac N. Arnold. 1866. 
Baldwin. Iiiterzncw between President Lincoln and Colonel John B. 

Baldwin. 1866. 
Bancroft. Life of William H. Seward. By Frederick Bancroft. 2 

vols. 1900. 
Barnes. Memoir of Thurlow Weed. By Thurlow Weed Barnes. 1884. 
Barton. The Soul of Abraham Lincoln. By William Eleazar Barton. 

1920. 
Bigelow. Retrospections of an Active Life. By John Bigelow. 5 vols. 

1909. 
Blaine. Twenty Years of Congress. By James G. Blaine. 2 vols. 

1884. 
Botts. The Great Rebellion. By John Minor Botts. 1866. 
Boutvvell. Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs. By George 

S. Boutwell. 2 vols. 1902. 
Bradford. Union Portraits. By Gamaliel Bradford. 1916. 
Brooks. Washington in Lincoln's Time. By Noah Brooks, 1895. 
Carpenter. Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. 

By F. B. Carpenter. 1866. 
Chandler. Life of Zachary Chandler. By the Detroit Post and Tri- 
bune. 1880. 
Chapman. Latest Light on Abraham Lincoln. By Ervin Chapman. 

1917. 
The Charleston Mercury. 

Chase. Diary and Correspondence of Salmon Chase. Report, Ameri- 
can Historical Association, 1902, Vol. II. 
Chittenden. Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration. 

By L. E. Chittenden. 1891. 



426 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Coleman. Life of John J. Crittenden, with Selections from his Cor' 

respondence and Speeches. By Ann Mary Coleman. 2 vols. 1871. 
Conway. Autobiography, Memories and Experiences of Moncure Dan- 

ial Conway. 2 vols. 1904. 
Correspondence. The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander 

H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb. Edited by U. B. Phillips. Report 

American Historical Association, 1913, Vol. II. 
Cravv^ford. The Genesis of the Civil War. By Samuel Wylie Cravi^- 

ford. 1887. 
C. W. Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. 

1863. 
Dabney. Memoir of a Narrative Received from Colonel John B. Bald- 
win, of Staunton, touching the Origin of the War. By Reverend 

R. L. Dabney, D. D., Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 1. 

1876. 
Davis. Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. By Jefiferson 

Davis. 2 vols. 1881. 
Dunning. Bssays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related 

Topics. By William A. Dunning. 1898. 
Field. Life of David Dudley Field. By Henry M. Field. 1898. 
Flower. Edwin McMasters Stanton. By Frank Abial Flower. 1902. 
Fry. Military Miscellanies. By James B. Fry. 1889. 
Galaxy. The History of Emancipation. By Gideon Welles. The 

Galaxy, XIV, 838-851. 
Gilmore. Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil 

War. By James R. Gilmore. 1899. 
Gilmore, Atlantic. A Suppressed Chapter of History. By James R. 

Gilmore, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1887. 
Globe. Congressional Globe, Containing the Debates and Proceedings. 

1834-1873. 
Godwin. Biography of William Cullen Bryant. By Parke Godwin. 

1883. 
Gore. The Boyhood of Abraham Lincoln. By J. Rogers Gore. 1921. 
Gorham. Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton. By George 

C. Gorham. 2 vols. 1899. 
Grant. Personal Memoirs. By Ulysses S. Grant. 2 vols. 1886. 
Greeley. The American Conflict. By Horace Greeley. 2 vols. 1864- 

1867. 
Gurowski. Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862. By 

Adam Gurowski. 1862. 
Hanks. Nancy Hanks. By Caroline Hanks Hitchcock. 1900. 



1 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 427 

Harris. Pttblic Life of Zachary Chandler. By W. C. Harris, Michi- 
gan Historical Commission. 1917. 

Hart. Salmon Portland Chase. By Albert Bushnell Hart, 1899. 

Hay MS. Diary of John Hay. Tlie war period is covered by three 
volumes of manuscript. Photostat copies in the library of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, accessible only by special per- 
mission. 

Hay, Century. Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln. By 
John Hay, Century Magazine, November, 1890. 

The New York Herald. 

Herndon. Herndon's Lincoln. The True Story of a Great Life: The 
History and Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln. By W. 
H. Herndon and J. W. Weik. 3 vols, (paged continuously). 1890. 

Hill. Lincoln the Lawyer. By Frederick Trevers Hill. 1906. 

Hitchcock. Fifty Years in Camp and Field. Diary of Major-General 
Ethan Allen Hitchcock, U. S. A. Edited by W. Croffut. 1909. 

Johnson. Stephen A. Douglas. By Allen Johnson. 1908. 

The Journal of the Virginia Convention. 1861. 

Julian. Political Recollections 1840-1872. By George W. Julian. 1884. 

Kelley. Lincoln and Stanton. By W. D. Kelley. 1885. 

Lamon. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Ward H. Lamon. 1872. 

Letters. Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln. Now first brought 
together by Gilbert A. Tracy. 1917. 

Lieber. Life and Letters of Francis Licber. Editeti by Thomas S. 
Perry, 1882. 

Lincoln. Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by John 
G. Nicolay and John Hay. 2 vols. New and enlarged edition. 
12 volumes. 1905. (All references here are to the Colter edition.) 

McCarthy. Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction. By Charles M. Mc- 
Carthy, 1901. 

McClure. Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times. By A. K. Mc- 
Clure. 1892. 

Merriam. Life and Times of Samuel Boivles. By G. S. Merriam. 2 
vols. 1885. 

Munford. Virginia's Attitude toivard Slavery and Secession. By 
Beverley B. Munfortl. 1910. 

Moore. A Digest of International Law. By John Bassett Moore. 8 
vols. 1906. 

Newton. Lincoln and Herndon. By Joseph Fort Newton. 1910. 

Nicolay. A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln. By John G. Nicolay. 
1902. 



428 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Nicolay, Cambridge. The Cambridge Modern History: Volume VII. 
The United States. By various authors. 1903. 

Miss Nicolay. Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln. By Helen Nico- 
lay. 1912. 

N. and H. Abraham Lincoln: A History. By John G. Nicolay and 
John Hay. 10 vols. 1890. 

N. R. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies. First 
series. 27 vols. 1895-1917. 

O. R. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 128 
vols. 1880-1901. 

Outbreak. The Outbreak of the Rebellion. By John G. Nicolay. 1881. 

Own Story. McClellan's Ozmt Story. By George B. McClellan. 1887. 

Paternity. The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln. By William Eleazer 
Barton. 1920. 

Pearson. Life of John A. Andrew. By Henry G. Pearson. 2 vols. 
1904. 

Pierce. Memoirs and Letters of Charles Sumner. By Edward LilHe 
Pierce. 4 vols. 1877-1893. 

Porter. In Memory of General Charles P. Stone. By Fitz John 
Porter. 1887. 

Public Man. Diary of a Public Man. Anonymous. North American 
Reviezv. 1879. 

Rankin. Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln. By Henry B. 
Rankin. 1916. 

Raymond. Journal of Henry J. Raymond. Edited by Henry W. Ray- 
mond. Scribner's Magazine. 1879-1880. 

Recollections. Recollections of Abraham Lincoln. By Ward Hill 
Laimon. 1911. 

Reminiscences. Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, by Distinguished 
Men of his Time. Edited by Allen Thorndyke Rice. 1886. 

Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, first session, Thirty- 
Ninth Congress. 

Rhodes. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850. 
By James Ford Rhodes. 8 vols. 1893-1920. 

Riddle. Recollections of War Times. By A. G. Riddle. 1895. 

Schrugham. The Peaceful Americans of 1860. By Mary Schrugham. 
1922. 

Schurz. Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl 
Schurz. Selected and edited by Frederick Bancroft. 1913. 

Scott. Memoirs of Lieutenant General Scott, LL.D. Written by him- 
self. 2 vols. 1864. 

Seward. Works of William H. Seward. 5 vols. 1884. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 429 

Sherman. Memoirs of IVilliavi T. Sherman. By himself. 2 vols. 

1886. 
Sherman Letters. Letters of John Shervtan and IV. T. Sherman. 

Edited by Rachel Sherman Thorndike. 1894. 
Southern Historical Society Papers. 
Stephens. Constitutional View of the Late War between the States. 

By Alexander H. Stephens. 2 vols. 1868-1870. 
Stoddard. Inside the White House in War Times. By William O. 

Stoddard. 1890. 
Stories. "Abe" Lincoln's Yarns and Stories. With introduction and 

anecdotes by Colonel Alexander K. McClure. 1901. 
The New York Sun. 
Swinton. Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac. By William Svvin- 

ton. 1866. 
Tarbell. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Ida M. Tarbell. New 

edition. 2 vols. 1917. 
Thayer. The Life and Letters of John Hay. By William Roscoe 

Thayer. 2 vols. 1915. 
The New York Times. 
The New York Tribune. 
Tyler. Letters and Times of the Tylers. By Lyon G. Tyler. 3 vols. 

1884-1896. 
Van Santvoord. A Reception by President Lincoln. By C. J. Van 

Santvoord. Century Magasine, Feb., 1883. 
Villard. Memoirs of Henry Villard. 2 vols. 1902. 
Wade. Life of Benjamin F. Wade. By A. G. Riddle. 1886. 
Warden. Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon 

Portland Chase. By R. B. Warden. 1874. 
Welles. Diary of Gideon Welles. Edited by J. T. Morse, Jr. 3 

vols. 19n. 
White. Life of Lyman Trumbull. By Horace White. 
Woodburn. The Life of Thaddeus Stevens. By James Albert Wood- 
burn. 1913. 



NOTES 



NOTES 

I. The Child of the Forest. 

1. Herndon, 1-7, 11-14; Lamon, 8-13; N. and H., I, 23-27. This 
is the version of his origin accepted by Lincoln. He believed that his 
mother was the illegitimate daughter of a Virginia planter and traced 
to that doubtful source "all the qualities that distinguished him from 
other members" of his immediate family. Herndon, 3. His secretaries 
are silent upon the subject. Recently the story has been challenged. 
Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock, who identifies the Hanks family of 
Kentucky with a lost branch of a New England family, has collected 
evidence which tends to show that Nancy was the legitimate daughter 
of a certain Joseph H. Hanks, who was father of Joseph the car- 
penter, and that Nancy was not the niece but the younger sister of the 
"uncle" who figures in the older version, the man with whom Thomas 
Lincoln worked. Nancy and Thomas appear to have been cousins 
through their mothers. Mrs. Hitchcock argues the case with care and 
ability in a little book entitled Nancy Hanks. However, she is not 

altogether sustained by W. E. Barton, The Paternity of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Scandal has busied itself with the parents of Lincoln in another 
way. It has been widely assertetl that he was himself illegitimate. A 
variety of shameful paternities have been assigned to him, some pal- 
pably absurd. The chief argument of the lovers of this scandal was 
once the lack of a known record of tlie marriage of his parents. Around 
this fact grew up the story of a marriage of concealment with Thomas 
Lincoln as the easy-going accomplice. The discovery of the marriage 
record fixing the date and demonstrating that Abraham must have been 
the second child gave this scandal its quietus. N. and H., I, 23-24; 
Hanks, 59-67; Herndon, 5-6; Lincoln and Herndon, 321. The last 
important book on the subject is Barton, The Paternity of Abraham. 
Lincoln. 

2. N. and H., 1-13. 

3. Lamon, 13 ; N. and H., L 25. 

4. N. and H., I, 25. 

5. Gore, 221-225. 

6. Herndon, 15. 

7. Gore, 66, 70-74, 79, 83-84, 116, 151-154, 204, 226-230, for all this 
group of anecdotes. 

The evidence with regard to all the early part of Lincoln's life is 
peculiar in this, that it is reminiscence not written down until the sub- 

433 



434 NOTES 

ject had become famous. Dogmatic certainty with regard to the de- 
tails is scarcely possible. The best one can do in weighing any of the 
versions of his early daj^s is to inquire closely as to whether all its 
parts hang naturally together, whether they really cohere. There is a 
body of anecdotes toM by an old mountaineer, Austin Gollaher, who 
knew Lincoln as a boy, and these have been collected and recently put 
into print. Of course, they are not "documented" evidence. Some stu- 
dents are for brushing them aside. But there is one important argu- 
ment in their favor. They are coherent; the boy they describe is a 
real person and his personality is sustained. If he is a fiction and 
not a memory, the old mountaineer was a literary artist — far more the 
artist than one finds it easy to believe. 

8. Gore, 84-95; Lamon, 16; Herndon, 16. 

9. Gore, 181-182, 296, 303-316; Lamon, 19-20; N. and H., I, 28-29. 

II. The Myterious Youth. 

1. N. and H., I, 32-34. 

2. Lamon, 33-38, 51-52, 61-63; N. and H., I, 34-36. 

3. N. and H., I, 40. 

4. Lamon, 38, 40, 55. 

5. Reminiscences, 54, 428. 

III. A Village Leader. 

L N. and H.. I, 45-46, 70-72 ; Herndon, 67, 69, 72. 

2. Lamon, 81-82; Herndon, 75-76. 

3. Lincoln, I, 1-9. 

4. Lamon, 125-126; Herndon, 104. 

5. Herndon, 117-118. 

6. N. and H., I, 109. 

7. Stories, 94. 

8. Herndon, 118-123. 

9. Lamon, 159-164; Herndon, 128-138; Rankin, 61-95. 

10. Lamon, 164. 

11. Lamon, 164-165; Rankin, 95. 



IV. Revelations. 



1. Riddle, 227. 

2. Herndon, 436. 

3. N. and H., I, 138. 

4. Lincoln, I, 51-52. 



NOTES 435 

5. McClure, 65. 

6. Herndon, 184-185. 

7. Lamon, 172-183; Herndon, 143-150, 161; Lincoln, I, 87-92. 

8. Gossip has preserved a melodramatic tale with regard to Lin- 
coln's marriage. It describes the bride to be, waiting, arrayed, in tense 
expectation deepening into alarm; the guests assembled, wondering, 
while the hour appointed passes by and the ceremony does not be- 
gin; the failure of the prospective bridegroom to appear; the scatter- 
ing of the company, amazed, their tongues wagging. The explanation 
offered is an attack of insanity. Herndon, 215; Lamon. 239-242. As 
might be expected Lincoln's secretaries who see him always in a halo 
give no hint of such an event. It has become a controversial scandal. 
Is it a fact or a myth? ]\Iiss Tarbell made herself the champion of the 
mythical explanation and collected a great deal of evidence that makes 
it hard to accept the story as a fact. Tarbell, I, Chap. XI. Still later 
a very sane memoirist, Henry B. Rankin, who knew Lincoln, and is 
not at all an apologist, takes the same view. His most effective argu- 
ment is that such an event could not have occurred in the little country 
town of Springfield without becoming at the time the common property 
of all the gossips. The evidence is bewildering. I find myself unable 
to accept the disappointed wedding guests as established facts, even 
though the latest student of Herndon has no doubts. Lincoln and Hern- 
don, 321-322. But whether the broken marriage story is true or false 
there is no doubt that Lincoln passed through a desolating inward ex- 
perience about "the fatal first of January" ; that it was related to the 
breaking of his engagement; and that for a time his sufferings were 
intense. The letters to Speed are the sufficient evidence. Lincoln, 
1, 168-175; 182-189; 210-219; 238-240; 261; 267-269. The prompt ex- 
planation of insanity may be cast aside, one of those foolish delusions 
of shallow people to whom all abnormal conditions are of the same 
nature as all others. Lincoln wrote to a noted Western physician, 
Doctor Drake of Cincinnati, with regard to his "case" — that is, his 
nervous breakdown — and Doctor Drake replied but refused to prescribe 
without an interview. Lamon, 244. 

V. Prosperity. 

1. Carpenter, 304-305. 

2. Lamon, 243, 252-269; Herndon, 226-243, 248-251; N. and H., 
200, 203-212. 

3. A great many recollections of Lincoln attempt to describe him. 
Except in a large and general way most of them show that lack of 



436 NOTES 

definite visualization which characterizes the memories of the careless 
observer. His height, his bony figure, his awkwardness, the rudely 
chiseled features, the mystery in his eyes, the kindliness of his ex- 
pression, these are the elements of the popular portrait. Now and then 
a closer observer has added a detail. Witness the masterly comment 
of Walt Whitman. Herndon's account of Lincoln speaking has the 
earmarks of accuracy. The attempt by the portrait painter. Carpenter, 
to render him in words is quoted later in this volume. Carpenter, 
217-218. Unfortunately he was never painted by an artist of great 
originality, b}^ one who was equal to his opportunity. My authority 
for the texture of his skin is a lady of unusual closeness of observa- 
tion, the late Mrs. M. T. W. Curwen of Cincinnati, who saw him in 
1861 in the private car of the president of the Indianapolis and Cin- 
cinnati railroad. An exhaustive study of the portraits of Lincoln is 
in preparation by Mr. Winfred Porter Truesdell, who has a valuable 
paper on the subject in The Print Connoisseur, for March, 1921. 

4. Herndon, 264. 

5. Ibid. 

6. Ibid., 515. 

7. A vital question to the biographer of Lincoln is the credibility 
of Herndon. He has been accused of capitalizing his relation with 
Lincoln and producing a sensational image for commercial purposes. 
Though his Life did not appear until 1890 when the official work of 
Nicolay and Hay was in print, he had been lecturing and correspond- 
ing upon Lincoln for nearly twenty-five years. The "sensational" first 
edition of his Life produced a storm of protest. The book was prompt- 
ly recalled, worked over, toned down, and reissued "expurgated" in 1892. 

Such biographers as Miss Tarbell appear to regard Herndon as a 
mere romancer. The well poised Lincoln and Herndon recently pub- 
lished by Joseph Fort Newton holds what I feel compelled to regard as 
a sounder view ; namely, that while Herndon was at times reckless 
and at times biased, nevertheless he is in the main to be relied upon. 

Three things are to be borne in mind : Herndon was a literary 
man by nature ; but he was not by training a developed artist ; he was 
a romantic of the full flood of American romanticism and there are 
traceable in him the methods of romantic portraiture. Had he been 
an Elizabethan one can imagine him laboring hard with great pride 
over an inferior "Tamburlane the Great" — and perhaps not knowing 
that it was inferior. Furthermore, he had not, before the storm broke 
on him, any realization of the existence in America of another school 
of portraiture, the heroic-conventual, that could not understand the 



NOTES 



437 



romantic. If Herndon strengthened as much as possible the contrasts 
of his subject— such as the contrast between the sordidness of Lin- 
coln's origin and the loftiness of his thought— he felt that by so doing 
he was merely rendering his subject in its most brilliant aspect, giving 
to it the largest degree of significance. A third consideration is Hern- 
don's enthusiasm for the agnostic deism that was rampant in America 
in his day. Perhaps this causes his romanticism to slip a cog, to run 
at times on a side-track, to become the servant of his religious parti- 
sanship. In three words the faults of Herndon are exaggeration, literal- 
ness and exploitiveness. 

But all these are faults of degree which the careful student can 
allow for. By "checking up" all the parts of Herndon that it is pos- 
sible to check up one can arrive at a pretty confident belief that one 
knows how to tiivest the image he creates of its occasional unrealities. 
When one does so, the strongest argument for relying cautiously, 
watchfully, upon Herndon appears. The Lincoln thus revealed, though 
only a character sketch, is coherent. And it stands the test of com- 
parison in detail with the Lincolns of other, less romantic, observers. 
That is to say, with all his faults, Herndon has the inner something 
that will enable the diverse impressions of Lincoln, always threateningf 
to become irreconcilable, to hang together and out of their very incon- 
gruity to invoke a person that is not incongruous. And herein, in 
this touchstone so to speak, is Herndon's value. 

8. Herndon, 265. 

9. Lamon, 51. 

10. Lincoln, I, 35-50. 

11. The reader who would know the argument against Herndon 
(436-446) and Lamon (486-502) on the subject of Lincoln's early re- 
ligion is referred to The Soul of Abraham Lincoln, by William Eleazer 
Barton. It is to be observed that the present study is never dogmatic 
about Lincoln's religion in its early phases. And when Herndon and 
Lamon generalize about his religious life, it must be remembered that 
they are thinking of him as they knew him in Illinois. Herndon had 
no familiarity with him after he went to Washington. Lamon could 
not have seen very much of him — no one but his secretaries and his 
wife did. And his taciturnity must be borne in mind. Nicolay has re- 
corded that he did not know what Lincoln believed. Lamon, 492. That 
Lincoln was vaguely a deist in the 'forties — so far as he had any the- 
olog}- at all — may be true. But it is a rash leap to a conclusion to 
assume that his state of mind even then was the same thing as the 
impression it made on so practical, hard-headed, unpoetical a character 



438 NOTES 

as Lamon; or on so combatively imaginative but wholly unmystical a 
mind as Herndon's. Neither of them seems to have any understanding 
of those agonies of spirit through which Lincoln subsequently passed 
which will appear in the account of the year 1862. See also Miss 
Nicolay, 384-386. There is a multitude of pronouncements on Lincoln's 
religion, most of them superficial. 

12. Lincoln, I, 206. 

13. Nicolay, 73-74; N. and H., 1, 242; Lamon, 275-277. 

14. Lamon, 277-278 ; Herndon, 272-273 ; N. and H., I, 245-249. 

VL Unsatisfying Recognition. 



I. 


N. and H., 1, 286-288. 


2. 


Tarbell, I, 211. 


3. 


Ibid., 210-211. 


4. 


Herndon, 114. 


5. 


Lincoln, II, 28-48. 


6. 


Herndon, 306-308, 319; Newton, 40-41. 


7. 


Tarbell, I, 209-210. 


8. 


Herndon, 306. 


9. 


Lamon, 334 ; Herndon, 306 ; N. and H., I, 297 




VII. The Second Start. 


1. 


Herndon, 307, 319. 


2. 


Herndon, 319-321. 


-3. 


Herndon, 314-317. 


4. 


Herndon, 332-333. 


5. 


Herndon, 311-312. 


6. 


Herndon, 319. 


7. 


Lamon, 165. 


8. 


Herndon, 309. 


9. 


Herndon, 113-114; Stories, 186. 


10. 


Herndon, 338. 


11. 


Lamon, 324. 


12. 


Lincoln, 11, 142. 


13. 


Herndon, 347. 


14. 


Herndon, 363. 


15. 


Herndon, 362. 


16. 


Lincoln, II, 172. 


17. 


Lincoln, II, 207. 


18. 


Lincoln, II, 173. 


19. 


Lincoln, II, 165, 



NOTES 439 

VIII, A Return to Politics. 

1. Johnson, 234. 

2. I have permission to print the following letter from the Hon- 
orable John H. Alarshall, Judge Fifth Judicial Circuit, Charleston, 
Illinois : 

"Your letter of the 24th inst. at hand referring to slave trial in 
which Lincoln was interested, referred to by Professor Henry John- 
son. Twenty-five years ago, while I was secretary of the Coles County 
Bar Association, a paper was read to the Association by the oldest 
member concerning the trial referred to, and his paper was filed with 
me. Some years ago I spoke of the matter to Professor Johnson, and 
at the time was unable to find the old manuscript, and decided that 
the same had been inadvertently destroyed. However, quite recently 
I found this paper crumpled up under some old book records. The 
author of this article is a reputable member of the bar of this country 
of very advanced age, and at that time quoted as his authority well- 
known and very substantial men of the county, who had taken an 
active interest in the litigation. His paper referred to incidents oc- 
curring in 1847, and there is now no living person with any knowledge 
of it. The story in brief is as follows : 

"In 1845, General Robert Matson, of Kentucky, being hard pressed 
financially, in order to keep tliem from being sold in paj-ment of his 
debts, brought Jane Bryant, with her four small children to this county. 
Her husband, Anthony Bryant, was a free negro, and a licensed exhorter 
in the Methodist Church of Kentucky. But his wife and children were 
slaves of IMatson. In 1847, Matson, determined to take the Bryants 
back to Kentucky as his slaves, caused to be issued by a justice of 
the peace of the county a writ directed to Jane Bryant and her chil- 
dren to appear before him forthwith and answer the claim of Robert 
IMatson that their service was due to him, etc. This action produced 
great excitement in this county. Practically the entire community 
divided, largely on the lines of pro-slavery and anti-slavery. Usher 
F. Linder, the most eloquent lawyer in this vicinity, appeared for Mat- 
son, and Orlando B. Ficklin, twice a member of Congress, appeared 
for the negroes. Under the practice the defendant obtained a hearing 
from three justices instead of one, and a trial ensued lasting several 
days, and attended by great excitement. Armed men made demonstra- 
tions and bloodshed was narrowly averted. Two of the justices were 
pro-slavery, and one anti-slavery. The trial was held in Charleston. 
The decision of the justice was discreet. It was held that the court 



440 NOTES 

had no jurisdiction to determine the right of property, but that Jane 
and her children were of African descent and found in the state of 
Illinois without a certificate of freedom, and that they be committed 
to the county jail to be advertised and sold to pay the jail fees. 

"At the next term of the circuit court, Ficklin obtained an order 
staying proceedings until the further order of the court. Finally when 
the case was heard in the circuit court Linder and Abraham Lincoln 
appearetl for Matson, who was insisting upon the execution of the 
judgment of the three justices of the peace so that he could buy them 
at the proposed sale, and Ficklin and Charles Constable, afterward 
a circuit judge of this circuit, appeared for the negroes. The judg- 
ment was in favor of the negroes and they were discharged. 

"The above is a much abbreviated account of this occurrence, 
stripped of its local coloring, giving however its salient points, and 
I have no doubt of its substantial accuracy." 

3. Lincoln, H, 185. 

4. Lincoln, II, 186. 

5. Lamon, 347. 

6. Lincoln, II, 232-233. 

7. Lincoln, II, 190-262. 

8. Lincoln, 274-277. 

IX. The Literary Statesman. 

1. Herntlon, 371-372. 

2. Lincoln, II, 329-330. 

3. Lincoln, III, 1-2. 

4. Herndon, 405-408. 

5. Lincoln, II, 279. 

6. Lamon, 416. 

X. The Dark Horse. 

1. Lincoln, V, 127. 

2. Tarbell, I, 335. 

3. Lincoln, V, 127, 138, 257-258. 

4. Lincoln. V, 290-291. He never entirely shook off his erratic use 
of negatives. See, also, Lamon, 424; Tarbell, I, 338. 

5. Lincoln, V, 293-328. 

6. McClure, 23-29; Field, 126, 137-138; Tarbell, I, 342-357. 



NOTES 441 

XII. The Crisis. 



1. Letters, 172. 

2. Lincoln, VI, 11, 78, 79, 93. 

3. Bancroft, II, 10; Letters, 172. 

XIII. Eclipse. 

1. Bancroft, II, 10; Letters, 172. 

2. Bancroft, II, 9-10. 

3. Herndon, 484. 

4. McClurc, 140-145 ; Lincoln, VI, 91, 97. 

5. Recollections, 111. 

6. Recollections, 121. 

7. Recollections, 112-113; Tarbcll, I, 404-405. 

8. Tarbell, I, 406. 

9. Tarbell, I, 406. 

10. Lincoln, VI, 92. 

11. Tarbell, I, 406. 

12. Herndon, 483-484. 

13. Lamon, 505 ; see also, Herndon, 485-487. 

14. Lincoln, VI, 110. 

XIV. The Strange New Majt. 

1. Lincoln, VT, 130. 

2. Merriam, I, 318. 

3. Public Man, 140. 

4. Van Santvoord. 

5. N. and H., I, Z(i\ McClure, 179. 

6. Herndon, 492. 

7. Recollections, 39-41. 

8. Lincoln, VI, 162-164. 

9. Bancroft, II, 38-45. 

10. Public Man, 383. 

11. Chittenden, 89-90. 

12. Public Man, 387. 

XV. President and Premier. 

1. Hay MS, I, 64. 

2. Tyler, II, 565-566. 



442 NOTES 

3. Bradford, 208; Seward, IV, 416. 

4. Nicolay, 213. 

5. Chase offered to procure a commission for Henry Villard, "by 
way of compliment to the Cincinnati Commercial." Villard, I, 177. 

6. N. and H., Ill, 333, note 12. 

7. Outbreak, 52. 

8. Hay MS, I, 91; Tyler, II, 633; Coleman, I, 338. 

9. Hay MS, I, 91 ; Riddle, 5; Public Man, 487. 

10. Correspondence, 548-549. 

11. See Miss Schrugham's monograph for much important data 
with regard to this moment. Valuable as her contribution is, I can not 
feel that the conclusions invalidate the assumption of the text. 

12. Lincoln, VI, 192-220. 

13. Sherman, I, 195-196. 

14. Lincoln, VI, 175-176. 

15. 127 O. R., 161. 

16. Munford, 274; Journal of the Virginia Convention, 1861. 

17. Lincoln, VI, 227-230. 

18. N. R., first series, IV, 227. 

19. Hay MS, I, 143. 

20. The great authority of Mr. Frederick Bancroft is still on the 
side of the older interpretation of Sewartl's Thoughts, Bancroft, II, 
Chap. XXIX. It must be remembered that following the war there 
was a reaction against Seward. When Nicolay and Hay published 
the Thoughts they appeared to give him the coup de grace. Of late 
years it has almost been the fashion to treat him contemptuously. 
Even Mr. Bancroft has been very cautious in his defense. This is 
not the place to discuss his genius or his political morals. But on one 
thing I insist. Whatever else he was — unscrupulous or what you will — 
he was not a fool. However reckless, at times, his spread-eagleism 
there was shrewdness behind it. The idea that he proposed a ridicu- 
lous foreign policy at a moment when all his other actions reveal 
coolness and calculation ; the idea that he proposed it merely as a 
spectacular stroke in party management; this is too much to believe. 
A motive must be found better than mere chicanery. 

Furthermore, if there was one fixed purpose in Seward, during 
March and early April, it was to avoid a domestic conflict ; and the 
only way he could see to accomplish that was to side-track Montgom- 
ery's expansive all-Southern policy. Is it not fair, with so astute a 
politician as Seward, to demand in explanation of any of his moves 
the uncovering of some definite political force he was playing up to? 



NOTES 443 

The old interpretation of the Thoughts offers no force to which they 
form a response. Especially it is impossible to find in them any scheme 
to get around Montgomery. But the old view looked upon the Virginia 
compromise with blind eyes. That was no part of the mental prospect. 
In accounting for Seward's purposes it did not exist. But the mo- 
ment one's eyes are opened to its significance, especially to the menace 
it had for the Montgomery program, is not the entire scene trans- 
formed? Is not, under these new conditions, the purpose intimated 
in the text, the purpose to open a new field of exploitation to the 
Southern expansionists in order to reconcile them to the Virginia 
scheme, is not this at least plausible? And it escapes making Seward 
a fool. 

21. Lincoln, VI, 236-237. 

22. Welles, I, 17. 

23. There is still lacking a complete unriddling of the three- 
cornered game of diplomacy playetl in America in March and April, 
1861. Of the three participants Richmond is the most fully revealed. 
It was playing desperately for a compromise, any sort of compromise, 
that would save the one principle of state sovereignty. For that, 
slavery would be sacrificed, or at least allowed to be put in jeopardy. 
Munford, Virginia's Attitude toward Slavery and Secession; Tyler, 
Letters and Times of the Tylers; Journal of the Virginia Convention 
of 1861. However, practically no Virginian would put himself in the 
position of forcing any Southern State to abandon slavery against its 
will. Hence the Virginia compromise dealt only with the expansion 
of slavery, would go no further than to give the North a veto on that 
expansion. And its compensating requirement plainly would be a 
virtual demand for the acknowledgment of state sovereignty. 

Precisely what passed between Richmond and Washington is still 
something of a mystery. John Hay quotes Lincoln as saying that he 
twice offered to evacuate Sumter, once before and once after his 
inauguration, if the Virginians "would break up their convention with- 
out any row or nonsense." Hay MS, I, 91; Thayer, I, 118-119. From 
other sources we have knowledge of at least two conferences subse- 
quent to the inauguration and probably three. One of the conferences 
mentioned by Lincoln seems pretty well identified. Coleman II, Zi7-ii9>. 
It was informal and may be set aside as having little if any historic 
significance. When and to whom Lincoln's second offer was made is 
not fully established. Riddle in his Recollections says that he was 
present at an informal interview "with loyal delegates of the Vir- 
ginia State Convention," who were wholly satisfied with Lincoln's 



444 NOTES 

position. Riddle, 25. Possibly, this was the second conference men- 
tioned by Lincoln. It has scarcely a feature in common with the 
conference of April 4, which has become the subject of acrimonious 
debate. N. and H., Ill, 422-428; Boutwell, II, 62-67; Bancroft, II, 
102-104; Munfortf, 270; Southern Historical Papers, I, 449; Botts, 
195-201; Crawford, 311; Report of the Joint Committee on Recon- 
struction, first session, Thirty-Ninth Congress; Atlantic, April, 1875. 
The date of this conference is variously given as the fourth, fiftTi and 
sixth of April. Curiously enough Nicolay and Hay seem to have only 
an external knowledge of it ; their account is made up from documents 
and lacks entirely the authoritative note. They do not refer to the 
passage in the Hay MS, already quoted. 

There are three versions of the interview between Lincoln and 
Baldwin. One was given by Baldwin himself before the Committee 
on Reconstruction some five years after; one comprises the recollec- 
tions of Colonel Dabney, to whom Baldwin narrated the incident in 
the latter part of the war; a third is in the recollections of John Minor 
Botts of a conversation with Lincoln April 7, 1862. No two of the 
versions entirely agree. Baldwin insists that Lincoln made no offer 
of any sort; while Botts in his testimony before the Committee on 
Reconstruction says that Lincoln told him that he had told Baldwin 
that he was so anxious "for the preservation of the peace of this coun- 
try and to save Virginia and the other Border States from going 
out that (he would) take the responsibility of evacuating Fort Sumter, 
and take the chances of negotiating with the Cotton States." Baldwin's 
language before the committee is a little curious and has been thought 
disingenuous. Boutwell, I, 66. However, practically no one in this 
connection has considered the passage in the Hay MS or the state- 
ment in Riddle. Putting these together and remembering the general 
situation of the first week of April there arises a very plausible argu- 
ment for accepting the main fact in Baldwin's version of his confer- 
ence and concluding that Botts either misunderstood Lincoln (as Bald- 
win says he did) or got the matter twisted in memory. A further 
bit of plausibility is the guess that Lincoln talked with Botts not only 
of the interview with Baldwin but also of the earlier interview men- 
tioned by Riddle and that the two became confused in recollection. 

To venture on an assumption harmonizing these confusions. When 
Lincoln came to Washington, being still in his delusion that slavery 
was the issue and therefore that the crisis was "artificial," he was 
willing to make almost any concession, and freely offered to evacuate 
Sumter if thereby he could induce Virginia to drop the subject of seces- 



NOTES 445 

sion. Even later, when he was beginning to appreciate the real sig- 
nificance of the moment, he was still willing to evacuate Sumter if 
the issue would not be pushed further in the Border States, that is, 
if Virginia would not demand a definite concession of the right of 
secession. Up to this point I can not think that he had taken seriously 
Seward's proposed convention of the States and the general discussion 
of permanent Federal relations that would be bound to ensue. But 
now he makes his fateful discovery that the issue is not slavery but 
sovereignty. He sees that Virginia is in dead earnest on this issue 
and that a general convention will necessarily involve a final discussion 
of sovereignty in the United States and that the price of the Virginia 
Amendment will be the concession of the right of secession. On this 
assumption it is hardly conceivable that he offered to evacuate Sumter 
as late as the fourth of April. The significance therefore of the Bald- 
win interview would consist in finally convincing Lincoln that he could 
not effect any compromise without conceding the principle of State 
sovereignty. As this was the one thing he was resolved never to con- 
cede there was nothing left him but to consider what course would 
most strategically renounce compromise. Therefore, when it was known 
at Washington a day or two later that Fort Pickens was in imminent 
danger of being taken by the Confederates (see note 24), Lincoln in- 
stantly concentrated all his energies on the relief of Sumter. All 
along he had believed that one of the forts must be heM for the pur- 
pose of "a clear indication of policy," even if the other should be 
given up "as a military necessity." Lincoln, VL 301. His purpose, 
therefore, in deciding on the ostentatious demonstration toward Sum- 
ter was to give notice to the whole country that he made no conces- 
sions on the matter of sovereignty. In a way it was his answer to 
the Virginia compromise. 

At last the Union party in Virginia sent a delegation to confer 
with Lincoln. It did not arrive until Sumter had been fired upon. 
Lincoln read to them a prepared statement of policy which announced 
his resolution to make war, if necessary, to assert the national sov- 
ereignty. Lincoln, VI, 243-245. 

The part of Montgomery in this tangled episode is least under- 
stood of the three. With Washington, Montgomery had no official 
communication. Both Lincoln and Seward refused to recognize com- 
missioners of the Confederate government. Whether Seward as an 
individual went behind the back of himself as an official and per- 
sonally received the commissioners is a problem of his personal 
biography and his private morals that has no place in this discussion. 



446 NOTES 

Between Montgomery and Richmond there was intimate and cordial 
communication from the start. At first Montgomery appears to have 
taken for granted that the Secessionist party at Richmond was so 
powerful that there was little need for the new government to do any- 
thing but wait. But a surprise was in store for it. During February 
and March its agents reported a wide-spread desire in the South to 
compromise on pretty nearly any terms that would not surrentier the 
central Southern idea of state sovereignty. Thus an illusion of that 
day— as of this — was exploded, namely the irresistibility of economic 
solidarity. Sentimental and constitutional forces were proving more 
powerful than economics. Thereupon Montgomery's problem was 
transformed. Its purpose was to build a Southern nation and it had 
believed hitherto that economic forces had put into its hands the neces- 
sary tools. Now it must throw them aside and get possession of others. 
It must evoke those sentimental and constitutional forces that so many 
rash statesmen have always considered negligible. Consequently, for 
the South no less than for the North, the issue was speedily shifted 
from slavery to sovereignty. Just how this was brought about we do 
not yet know. Whether altogether through foresight and statesmanlike 
deliberation, or in part at least through what might almost be called 
accidental influences, is still a little uncertain. The question narrows 
itself to this: why was Sumter fired upon precisely when it was? 
There are at least three possible answers. 

(1) That the firing was dictated purely by military necessity. A 
belief that Lincoln intended to reinforce as well as to supply Sumter, 
that if not taken now it could never be taken, may have been the over- 
mastering idea in the Confederate Cabinet. The reports of the Com- 
missioners at Washington were tinged throughout by the belief that 
Seward and Lincoln were both double-dealers. Beauregard, in com- 
mand at Charleston, reported that pilots had come in from the sea and 
told him of Federal war-ships sighted off the Carolina coast. 1 O. R. 
297, 300, 301, 304, 305. 

(2) A political motive which to-day is not so generally intelligible 
as once it was, had great weight in 1861. This was the sense of honor 
in politics. Those historians who brush it aside as a figment lack 
historical psj'chology. It is possible that both Governor Pickens and 
the Confederate Cabinet were animated first of all by the belief that 
the honor of South Carolina required them to withstand the attempt of 
what they held to be an alien power. 

(3) And yet, neither of these explanations, however much either 
or both may have counted for in many minds, gives a convincing ex- 



NOTES 447 

planation of the agitation of Toombs in the Cabinet council which de- 
cided to fire upon Sumter. Neither of these could well be matters of 
debate. Everybody had to be either for or against, and that would be 
an end. The Toombs of that day was a different man from the Toombs 
of three months earlier. Some radical change had taken place in his 
thought. What could it have been if it was not the perception that the 
Virginia program had put the whole matter in a new light, that the 
issue had indeed been changed from slavery to sovereignty, and that 
to join battle on the latter issue was a far more serious matter than to 
join battle on the former. And if Toombs reasoned in this fearful 
way, it is easy to believe that the more buoyant natures in that council 
may well have reasoned in precisely the opposite way. Virginia had 
lifted the Southern cause to its highest plane. But there was danger 
that the Virginia compromise might prevail. If that should happen 
these enthusiasts for a separate Southern nationality might find all 
their work undone at the eleventh hour. Virginians who shared Mont- 
gomery's enthusiasms had seen this before then. That was why Roger 
Pryor, for example, had gone to Charleston as a volunteer missionary. 
In a speech to a Charleston crowd he besought them, as a way of 
precipitating Virginia into the lists, to strike blow. Charleston Mercury, 
April 11, 1861. 

The only way to get any clue to these diplomatic tangles is by 
discarding the old notion that there were but two political ideals clash- 
ing together in America in 1861. There were three. The Virginians 
with their devotion to the idea of a league of nations in this country 
were scarcely further away from Lincoln and his conception of a 
Federal unit than they were from those Southerners who from one 
cause or another were possessed with the desire to create a separate 
Southern nation. The Virginia program was as deadly to one as to 
the other of these two forces which with the upper South made up the 
triangle of the day. The real event of March, 1861, was the percep- 
tion both by Washington and Montgomery that the Virginia program 
spelled ruin for its own. By the middle of April it would be difficult 
to say which had the better reason to desire the defeat of that pro- 
gram, Washington or Montgomery. 

24. Lincoln, VI, 240, 301, 302; N. R., first series, IV, 109, 235, 
238-239; Welles, I, 16, 22-23, 25; Bancroft, II, 127, 129-130, 138, 139, 
144; N. and H., Ill, Chap. XI, IV, Chap. I. Enemies of Lincoln have 
accused him of bad faith with regard to the relief of Fort Pickens. 
The facts appear to be as follows: In January, 1861, when Fort 
Pickens was in danger of being seized by the forces of the State of 



448 NOTES 

Florida, Buchanan ordered a naval expedition to proceed to its re- 
lief. Shortly afterward — January 29 — Senator Mallory on behalf of 
Florida persuaded him to order the relief expedition not to land any 
troops so long as the Florida forces refrained from attacking the 
fort. This understanding between Buchanan and Mallory is some- 
times called "the Pickens truce," sometimes "the Pickens Armistice." 
N. and H., Ill, Chap. XI ; N. R., first series, I, 74 ; Scott, II, 624-625. 
The new Administration had no definite knowledge of it. Lincoln, 
VI, 302. Lincoln despatched a messenger to the relief expedition, 
which was still hovering off the Florida coast, and ordered its troops 
to be landed. The commander replied that he felt bound by the pre- 
vious orders which had been issued in the name of the Secretary of the 
Navy while the new orders issued from the Department of War; he 
added that relieving Pickens would produce war and wished to be 
sure that such was the President's intention ; he also informed Lin- 
coln's messenger of the terms of Buchanan's agreement with Mallory. 
The messenger returned to Washington for ampler instructions. N, 
and H., IV, Chap. I; N. R., first series, I, 109-110, 110-111. 

Two days before his arrival at Washington alarming news from 
Charleston brought Lincoln very nearly, if not quite, to the point of 
issuing sailing orders to the Sumter expedition. Lincoln, VI, 240. A 
day later, Welles issued such orders. N. R., first series, I, 235; Ban- 
croft, II, 138-139. On April sixth, the Pickens messenger returned 
to Washington. N. and H., IV, 7. Lincoln was now in full posses- 
sion of all the facts. In his own words, "To now reinforce Fort 
Pickens before a crisis would be reached at Fort Sumter was impos- 
sible, rendered so by the exhaustion of provisions at the latter named 
fort. . . . The strongest anticipated case for using it (the Sumter ex- 
pedition) was now presented, and it was resolved to send it forward." 
Lincoln, VI, 302. He also issued peremptory orders for the Pickens 
expedition to land its forces — which was done April twelfth. N. R., 
first series, I, 110-111, 115. How he reasoned upon the question of 
a moral obligation devolving, or not devolving, upon himself as a con- 
sequence of the Buchanan-Mallory agreement, he did not make pub- 
lic. The fact of the agreement was published in the first message. But 
when Congress demanded information on the subject, Lincoln trans- 
mitted to it a report from Welles declining to submit the information 
on account of the state of the country. 1 O. R., 440-441. 
25. Lincoln, VI, 241. 



NOTES 449 

XVI. On TO Richmond. 



1. 


May MS, I, 23. 


2. 


N. and H., IV, 152. 


3. 


Hay MS, I, 45. 


4. 


Hay MS. I, 46. 


5. 


Hay MS, I, 54-56. 


6. 


Sherman, I, 199. 


7. 


Nicolay, 213. 


8. 


N. and H.. IV, 322-323, 360. 


9. 


Bigelow, I, 360. 


10. 


Nicolay, 229. 


11. 


Lincoln, VI, 331-333. 


12. 


Own Story, 55, 82. 



XVII. Defining the Issue. 

1. Lincoln, VI, 297-325. 

2. Lincoln, X, 199. 

3. Lincoln, X, 202-203. 

4. Lincoln, VI, 321. 

5. Lincoln, VII, 56-57. 

6. Bancroft, II, 121 ; Southern Historical Papers, I, 446. 

7. Lincoln. VI, 304. 

8. Hay MS, L 65. 

9. Lincoln, VI, 315. 

10. 39 Globe, I, 222; N. and H., IV, 379. 

XVIII. The Jacobin Club. 

1. White, 171. 

2. Riddle, 46-52. 

3. Harris, 62. 

4. Public Man, 139. 

5. 37 Globe, III, 1334. 

6. Chandler, 253. 

7. White, 171. 

8. Conway, II, 336. 

9. Conway, II, 329. 

10. Rhodes, III, 350. 

11. Lincoln, VI, 351. 

12. Hay MS, I, 93. 



450 NOTES 

13. Hay MS, I, 93. 

14. Bigelow, I, 400. 

15. Chandler, 256. 

XIX. The Jacobins Become Inquisitors. 

1. Lincoln, VII, 28-60. 

2. Nicolay, 321. 

3. C. W., I, 3, 66. 

4. Julian, 201. 

5. Chanidler, 228. 

6. yi Globe, II, 189-191; Lincoln, VII, 151-152; 5 O. R., 341-346; 
114 O. R., 786, 797; C. W., I, 5, 74, 79; Battles and Leaders, II, 132-134; 
Blaine, I, 383-384, 392-393; Pearson, I, 312-313; Chandler, 222; Por- 
ter. 

7. Swinton, 79-85, quoting General McDowell's memoranda of 
their proceedings. 

8. n Globe, II, 15. 

9. Riddle, 296; Wade, 316; Chandler, 187. 

10. C. W., I, 74. 

11. ?>1 Globe, II, 1667. 

12. n Globe, II, 1662-1668, 1732-1742. 

13. Lincoln, VII, 151-152. 

XX. Is Congress the President's Master. 

1. Zl Globe, II, 67. 

2. Rhodes, III, 350. 

3. Z1 Globe, II, 3328. 

4. Zl Globe, II, 2764. 

5. Z1 Globe, II, 2734. 

6. Zl Globe II, 2972-2973. 

7. Zl Globe, II, 440. 

8. Zl Globe, II, 1136-1139. 

9. Quoting 7 Howard, 43-46. 

XXI. The Struggle to Control the Army. 

1. N. and H., IV, 444. 

2. Own Story, 84. 

3. Own Story, 85. 

4. Gurowski, 123. 



NOTES 

5. Hay MS, I, 99; Thayer, I, 125. 

6. N. and H., IV, 469. 

7. Hay MS, I, 93. 

8. 5 O. R., 41. 

9. Swinton, 79-84; C. W., I, 270. 

10. C. W., I, 270, 360, 387; Hay MS, II, 101. 

11. Gorham, I, 347-348; Kelly, 34. 

12. Chandler, 228 ; Julian, 205. 

13. Hay MS, I, 101 ; 5 O. R., 18. 

14. 5 O. R., 50. 

15. 5 O. R., 54-55 ; Julian, 205. • 

16. Hay MS, I, 103. 

17. Hitchcock, 439. 

18. Hitchcock, 440. The italics are his. 

19. 5 O. R., 58. 

20. 5 O. R., 59. 

21. 5 O. R., 63. 

22. Own Story, 226; 5 O. R., 18. 

23. C. W., I, 251-252. 

24. C. W., I, 251-253, 317-318. 

25. 15 O. R., 220; Hitchcock, 439, note. 

26. 14 O. R., 66. 

27. 12 O. R., 61. 

28. 17 O. R., 219. 

29. Rhodes, IV, 19. 

30. Nicolay, 306; McClure, 168. 

31. 17 O. R., 435. 
2>2. Julian, 218. 

33. N. and H., V, 453. 

34. Lincoln, VII, 266-267. 

35. Z7 Globe, II, 3386-3392. 

XXII. Lincoln Emerges. 

1. Alexander, III, 15-17. 

2. 2>7 Globe, II, 1493. 

3. Julian, 215; Conway, I, 344. 

4. Z7 Globe, II, 2363. 

5. Lincoln, VII, 171-172. 

6. 2,7 Globe, II, 1138. 

7. Lincoln, VII, 172-173. 

8. Pierce, IV, 78; 2,7 Globe, II, 2596. 



451 



452 NOTES 

9. Schurz, I, 187. 

10. London Times, Maj^ 9, 1862, quoted in American papers. 

11. 128 O. R., 2-3. 

12. Lincoln, VH, 270-274. 

13. Carpenter, 20-21. 

14. Galaxy, XIV, 842-843. 

15. Lincoln, VII, 276-277; 37 Globe, II, 3322-3324, 3333. 

16. Julian, 220; 37 Globe, II, 3286-3287. 

17. Lincoln, VII, 280-286. 

XXIII. The Mystical Statesman. 

1. Carpenter, 189. 

2. Recollections, 161. 

3. Recollections, 161-164; Carpenter, 116-119. 

4. Carpenter, 116. 

5. Carpenter, 90. 

6. Chapman, 449-450. 

7. Carpenter, 187. 

8. Lincoln, VIII, 52-53. 

9. Lincoln, VIII, 50-51. 

XXIV. Gambling in Generals. 

1. Reminiscences, 434. 

2. Recollections, 261. 

3. Galaxy, 842. 

4. Galaxy, 845. 

5. Carpenter, 22. 

6. 12 O. R., 80-81. 

7. C. W., I, 282. 

8. Lincoln, VIII, IS. 

9. Julian, 221. 

10. Thayer, I, 127. 

11. Welles, I, 104; Nicolay, 313. 

12. Thayer, I. 129. 

13. Thayer, I, 161. 

14. Reminiscences, 334-335, 528; Tarbell, II, 118-120; Lincoln, VIII, 
28-33. 

15. Chase, 87-88. 

16. Lincoln, VII, 36-40. 



NOTES 453 

XXV. A War behind the Scenes. 



1. 


Bigelow, I, 572. 


2. 


Zl Globe, III, 6. 


3. 


37 Globe. Ill, 76. 


4. 


Lincoln, VII, 57-60. 


5. 


Lincoln, VII, IZ. 


6. 


Swinton, 231. 


7. 


C. W., I, 650. 


8. 


Bancroft, II, 365; Welles, L 198. 


9. 


N. and H., VI, 265. 


10. 


Welles, I, 205 : Alexander, III, 185. 


11. 


Welles, I, 196-198. 


12. 


Welles, I. 201-202. 


13. 


Welles, I, 200. 


14. 


Lincoln, VII, 195-197. 



XXVI. The Dict.'Vtor, the Marplot and the Little Men. 

1. Harris, 64. 

2. Gurowski, 312. 

3. Sherman Letters, 167. 

4. Julian, 223. 

5. Recollections, 215; Barnes, 428; Reminiscences, XXXI, XXXII, 
XXXVIII. Nicolay and Hay allude to this story, but apparently doubt 
its authenticity. They think that Seymour "as is customary with elderly 
men exaggerated the definiteness of the proposition." 

6. Julian, 225. 

7. Lincoln, VIII, 154. 

8. Raymond, 704. 

9. Recollections, 193-194. 

10. Lincoln, VITI, 206-207. 

11. Zl Globe, III, 1068. 

12. Riddle, 278. 

13. Welles, I, ZZd. 

14. Lincoln, VIII, 235-237. 

15. Welles, I, 293. 

16. Lincoln, VIII, 527. 

17. Lincoln, IX, 3-4. 

18. Lincoln, VIII, 307-308. 

19 Barnes, 428; Reminiscences, XXX, XXXIII-XXXVIII. 



454 NOTES 

This story is told on the authority of Weed with much circum- 
stantial detail including the full text of a letter written by McClellan. 
The letter was produced because McClellan had said that no negotia- 
tions took place. Though the letter plainly alludes to negotiations of 
some sort, it does not mention the specific offer attributed to Lincoln. 
Nicolay and Hay are silent on the subject. See also note five, above. 

20. Tribune, July 7, 1863. 

21. Tribune, July 6, 1863. 

22. Lincoln, IX, 17. 

23. Lincoln, IX, 20-21. 

XXVII. The Tribune of the People. 

1. Rhodes, III, 461 ; Motley's Letters, II, 146. 

2. Reminiscences, 470. 

3. Hay, Century. 

4. Carpenter, 281-282. 

5. Van Santvoord. 

6. Hay, Century, 35. 

7. Carpenter, 150. 

8. Recollections, 97. 

9. Recollections, 80. 

10. Carpenter, 65. 

11. Carpenter, 65-67. 

12. Carpenter, 64. 

13. Recollections, 267. 

14. Carpenter, 64. 

15. Recollections, 83-84. 

16. Carpenter, 152. 

17. Carpenter, 219. 

18. Recollections, 103-105. 

19. Lincoln, X, 274-275. 

20. Recollections, 103. 

21. Recollections, 95-96. 

22. Hay, Century. 

23. Rankin, 177-179. 

24. Hay, Century, 35. 

25. Carpenter. 

26. Thayer, I, 198-199. 

27. Thayer, I, 196-197. 

28. Thayer, I, 199-200. 



NOTES 45S 

29. Carpenter, 104. 

30. Lincoln, VIII, 112-115. 

31. Lincoln, IX, 210. 

XXVIII. Apparent Ascendency. 

1. Lincoln. IX, 284. 

2. Lincoln, IX, 219-221. 

3. Lincoln, X, 38-39. 

4. 38 Globe, I, 1408. 

5. Bancroft, II, 429-430; Moore, VI, 497-498. 

6. Grant, II, 123. 

7. Lincoln, X, 90-91. 

XXIX. Catastrophe. 

1. Nicolay, 440. 

2. Carpenter, 130; Hay MS. 

3. Nicolay, 440. 

4. Lincoln, X, 25-26. 

5. Z1 Globe, II, 2674. 

6. Nicolay, 352. 

7. Lincoln, X, 49. 

8. Lincoln, X, 50-54. 

9. Rankin, 381-387; Hay, Century. 

10. Carpenter, 217. 

11. Carpenter, 81. 

12. Carpenter, 218. 

13. Hay, Century, 37. 

14. Lincoln, X, 89. 

15. Carpenter, 131. 

16. Lincoln, X, 122-123. 

17. Carpenter. 168-169. 

18. Carpenter, 30-31. 

19. Lincoln, X, 129. 

XXX. The President versus the Vindictives. 

1. Lincoln, X, 139-140. 

2. Chittenden, 379. 

3. Lincoln, X, 140-141. 

4. Carpenter, 181-183. 

5. N. and H., X, 95-100. 



456 NOTES 

6. Hay MS, I, 16-17; N. and H., IX, 120-121. 

XXXI. A Menacing Pause. 

1. Reminiscences, 398. 

2. Globe, 1, 3148. 

3. Riddle, 254. 

4. Greeley, II, 664-666. 

5. N. and H.. 186-190. 

6. Gilmore, 240. 

7. Gilmore, Atlantic. 

8. Gilmore. 243-244. 

9. Hay MS, I, 76-77; N. anti H., 167-173; Carpenter, 301-302. 

10. N. and H., IX. 338-339. 

11. Carpenter. 223-225. 

12. Carpenter, 2S2 ; also. N. and H., IX, 364. 

13. N. and H., IX, 188. 

14. N. and H., IX, 192. 

15. N. and H., IX. 195. 

16. N. and H., IX. 212, note. 

17. Lincoln, X, 164-166. 

XXXII. The .August Conspikacy. 

1. Julian, 247. 

2. Titnes, .-\ugust 1, 1864. 

3. Herald, August 6. 1864. 

4. Sun, June 30, 1889. 

5. N. and H.. IX, 250. 

6. N. and H., IX. 218. 

7. Times, August 18, 1864. 

8. N. and H.. IX. 196-197. 

9. Herald, August 18, 1864. 

10. Lincoln, X, 308. 

11. N. and H., IX, 250. 

12. Lincoln, X, 203-204. 

13. N. and H., IX, 221. 

14. Ibid. 

15. Herald, August 26, 1864. 

16. Tribune. August 27, 1864. 

17. Times, August 26, 1864. 



NOTES 457 



XXXIII. The Rally to the President. 

1. Herald, August 24, 1864. 

2. Times, August 26. 1864. 

3. Pierce, IV, 197-198. 

4. Pearson, II, 150-131. 

5. Herald, August 23, 1864. 

6. Pearson, II, 168. 

7. /6id. The terms oflfered Davis were not stated in the Atlantic 
article. See Gilmore, 289-290. 

8. Tribune, August 27, 1864. 

9. Sun, June 30. 1889. 

10. Sun, June 30, 1889; Pearson, II. 160-161. 

11. Pearson, II, 164. 

12. Pearson, II, 166. 

13. Sun, June 30, 1889. 

14. Tribune, August 30, 1864. 

15. Pearson, II, 162. 

16. Tribune, September 3, 1864. 

17. Pearson. TI, 165. 

18. Sun, June 30, 1889. 

19. Pearson, II, 167; Tribune, September 7, 1864. 

20. Tribune, September 6, 1864. 

21. Sun, June 30. 1889. 

22. Tribune, September 9, 1864. 

23. Tribune, September 7, 1864. 

24. Tribune, September 12, 1864. 

25. Tribune, September 22, 1864. 

XXXIV. "Father Abraham." 

1. N. and H., IX, 339. 

2. Ibid. 

3. Arnold. 390. 

4. Chandler, 274-276. „, . . . ■ a 
5 The famihar version of the retirement of Blair is contained 

in the Life of Chandler issued by the Detroit Post and tribune v,nth- 
out an author's name. This book throughout is an apo og," ^o^ Chand- 
ler. In substance its stor>- of this episode is as follows: Chandler 
beheld with aching heart the estrangement between L-^oln and ^^ a d e 
he set to work to bring them together; at a conference which he had 



458 NOTES 

with Wade, in Ohio, a working understanding was effected; Chandler 
hurried to Washington ; with infinite pains he accomplished a party 
deal, the three elements of which were Lincoln's removal of Blair, Fre- 
mont's resignation, and Wade's appearance in the Administration 
ranks. Whatever may be said of the physical facts of this narrative, 
its mental facts, its tone and atmosphere, are historical fiction. And 
I have to protest that the significance of the episode has been greatly 
exaggerated. The series of dates given in the text can not be recon- 
ciled with any theory which makes the turn of the tide toward Lin- 
coln at all dependent on a Blair-Fremont deal. Speaking of the tradi- 
tion that Chandler called upon Lincoln and made a definite agree- 
ment with him looking toward the removal of Blair, Colonel W. O. 
Stoddard writes me that his "opinion, or half memory, would be that 
the tradition is a myth." See also, Welles, II, 156-158. 

6. Lincoln, X, 228-229. 

7. Times, September 24, 1864. 

8. Times, September 28, 1864. 

9. N. and H., IX, 364. 

10. Thayer, II, 214; Hay MS. 

11. N. and H., IX, 377. 

12. Thayer, II, 216; Hay MS, III, 29. 

13. Lincoln, X, 261. 

14. N. and H., IX, 378-379. 

XXXV. The Master of the Moment. 

1. Lincoln, X, 283. 

2. N. and H., IX, 392-394. 

3. N. and H., IX, 210-211. 

4. One of the traditions that lias grown up around Lincoln 
makes the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment a matter of threats. 
Two votes were needed. It was discovered according to this simple- 
minded bit of art that two members of the opposition had been guilty 
of illegal practices, the precise nature of which is conveniently left 
vague. Lincoln, even in some highly reputable biographies, sent for 
these secret criminals, told them that the power of the President of 
the United States was very great, and that he expected them to vote 
for the amendment. The authority for the story appears to be a mem- 
ber of Congress, John B. Aley. Reminiscences, 585-586; Lord Charm- 
wood, Abraham Lincoln, 335-336. To a great many minds it has al- 
ways seemed out of key. Fortunately, there is a rival version. Shrewd, 
careful Riddle has a vastly different tale in which Lincoln does not 



NOTES 459 

figure at all in which three necessary votes were bought for the 
amendment by Ashley. Riddle is so careful to make plain just what 
he can vouch for and just what he has at second hand that his mere 
mode of narration creates confidence. Riddle, 324-325. Parts of his 
version are to be found in various places. 

5. Nicolay, Cambridge, 601. 

6. Lincoln, X, 38-39, and note ; XI, 89. 

7. 38 Globe, II, 903. 

8. 38 Globe, II, 1127. 

9. 38 Globe, II, 1129; Pierce, IV, 221-227. 

10. Recollections, 249. 

11. Nicolay, 503-504; Lincoln, XI, 43. 

12. Lincoln, XI, 44-46. 

XXXVI. Preparing a Different War. 

1. Grant, II, 459. 

2. Tarbell, II, 229. 

3. N. and H., IX, 457. 

4. Pierce, IV, 236. 

5. Lincoln, XI, 84-91. 

XXXVII. Fate Interposes. 

1. Tarbell, II, 231-232. 

2. Pierce, IV, 235. 

3. Tarbell, II, 232. 

4. Recollections, 116. 

5. Nicolay, 531. 

6. N. and H., X, 283-284. 

7. Julian, 255. 

8. Recollections, 249. 

9. Recollections, 119. 

10. Nicolay, 532. 

11. Recollections, 119-120; Carpenter, 293; Nicolay, 532; Tarbell, 
II, 235. 

12. Nicolay, 539. 

13. Thayer, II, 219; Hay MS. 

14. Riddle, 332. 

15. Nicolay, 530. 



INDEX 



INDEX 

Abolitionists, The, 248, 281; early tendencies, 31, 32; principles of, 

142. 
Adams, Charles Francis, 131, 288. 

Address to the voters of Sangamon County, Lincoln's, 135. 
2Esop, Lincoln's love of, 7, 13. 
"Ancient," The, 324. 

Andrew: Governor of Massachusetts, 130, 206; and Lincoln, 382. 
Anglo-Saxon, 1. 
Antietam Creek, 276, 277. 
Arkansas, secession of, 167. 
Army Board, The, 233. 
Army of Virginia, given to Pope, 271, 

Baker, Senator from Oregon, 142, 193. 

Baldwin, John B., state sovereignty, 163. 

Ball's Bluff episode, 205. 

Battle of the Wilderness, The, 345. 

Bennett, editor of the New York Herald, 372. 

Bible, The, influence on Lincoln, 13. 

Bixby, Mrs., letter of condolence from Lincoln, 321. 

Blair, Montgomery: 149, 156, 283; resignation, 389. 

Blair, Montgomery, Sr., Confederate government, 398. 

Blenker, General, "foreign legion," 234. 

Blockade of Southern Coast, The, 158. 

Booth, John Wilkes, 421. 

Bowles, Samuel, 128. 

Breckinridge, John C, 104, 105. 

Bright, John, and Sumner, 282. 

Brooks, Noah: and Lincoln, 263; and Sumner, 83. 

Brown, John: 95, 103; massacre of, 83. 

Browning, Orville Henry: and emancipation, 250; in Senate, 216; and 

powers of Congress, 217 et seq. 
Brownson, 248. 

Bryant, William Cullen, 95, 196. 
Buchanan, President: Mormon War, 157; secession, 120; slavery in 

Kansas, 84. 
Buckner, General, 338. 
Bull Run, defeat at, 174. 
Burns, Robert, influence on Lincoln, 25. 

463 



464 INDEX 

Burnside, General: defeat at Fredericksburg, 288; Federal Commander 
of the Department of the Ohio, 303; promoted, 287; Vallandig- 
ham episode, 306; weakness, 299. 

Byron, Lord, 65, 119. 

Cabinet, The: last meeting with Lincoln, 418; meeting of July 22, ^(2, 
269; the "on to Richmond" dilemma, 172. 

Calhoun, County Surveyor, 25. 

Cameron, Simon: 118, 135, ZTi; Ball's Bluff episode, 206; character- 
ized, 202; dismissal, 207; minister to Russia, 207; October draft, 
392. 

Cannon, Colonel, and Lincoln, 264. 

Carpenter, Frank B. : 316; and Lincoln, 341 et seg., 349. 

Cartwright, Peter, nominated for Congress in 1846, 49. 

Cass, Lewis, 54. 

Chancellorsville, 305. 

Chandler, Zachary: 204; Blair's resignation, 391; Bull Run picnic, 
189; conduct of the War Committee, 205; first clash with Lin- 
coln, 192 ; interferes with McClellan, 197 ; Michigan Democrats, 
297; Reconstruction Bill, 351. 

Chase, Salmon Portland: 135, 156; boom, 336; campaign for Chief 
Justice, 396; Hooker, 301 ; resigns from Cabinet, 292, 348; Seward's 
resignation, 291 et seq. ; Sumter, 149. 

Chicago clergymen visit Lincoln, 276. 

Cincinnati Gazette and Lincoln, 385. 

Cincinnati Times and Lincoln, 385. 

Clary's Grove, 22. 

Clay, C. C, 169. 

Clay, Henry: Lincoln's oration on, 69, 70; sovereignty, 184. 

Cleon, 179. 

Collyn, Reverend Robert, 269. 

Committee, The (See Jacobins). 

Communities, growth of, 3. 

Compromise of 1850, 72, 75. 

Conduct of War Committee, The, 205. 

Congress, three groups of, 248. 

Congressional Cabal, The, antagonism for Lincoln, 244. 

Congressional Globe, The, 216. 

Conklin, Roscoe, 206. 

Conscription, 357. 

Cooper Union: 82; Lincoln's speech at, 94, 185. 



INDEX 



465 



"Copperhead," 297. 

Council of Experts, The: 234; defense of Washington, 238. 

Council of Subordinates, The, 234. 

Cox, "Sunset," 288. 

Cresswell, General, and Lincoln, 419. 

Crittenden and resignation of Chase, 349. 

Crittenden compromise: 112, 151, 157, 194; laid on shelf, 207, second 

resolution passed by Congress, 187. 
Cromwell compared to Lincoln, 267. 
Cropsey, Mr. and Mrs., and Lincoln, 344. 
Cuba, 158. 
Cybele, 1. 

Davis, David, 62 ; 68. 

Davis, Henry Winter, and Bill on Reconstruction, 332, 393. 

Davis, Jefferson: 360; emancipation, 398; rejects Gilmore's proposal, 
375. 

Democratic Convention, 384. 

Democratic Party, break in, 75, 90. 

Democrats: and abolition, 33; Emancipation Proclamation, 282; Lin- 
coln, 245; two policies of, 298; secession, 111; weakness, 244. 

Dougherty, Betsy Ann, episode, and Lincoln, 319. 

Douglas, Frederick, and Lincoln, 338. 

Douglas, Stephan A.: 72, 104, 139; break with Democrats, 84; cam- 
paign of '54, 76; contrasted with Lincoln, 73; Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill, 75; Lincoln, 72 et seq., 83, as his political rival, 84; modes 
of travel, 89; as orator described by Harriett Beecher Stowe, 88; 
reelected to the Senate, 90 ; slavery, 75 ; slavery in Kansas, 84. 

Dred Scott decision, 83. 

Dreyfus case of the Civil War, The, 209. 

Economic conditions in early 'fifties, 74. 

"Edward Kirke." See J. R. Gihnore. 

Elizabethtown, Ky., 3. 

Emancipation as an amendment to the Constitution, 398. 

Emancipation Proclamation : confirmed, 294 ; published, 278 et seq. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo: 194, 248; and John Brown episode, 104. 

Enrollment Act, 358. 

Fanuel Hall, Lincoln rally at, 386. 
Farms of pioneers, 3. 



466 INDEX 

Fast Day Proclamation of 1863: 267; quoted, 304. 

Fessenden: appointed Secretary of the Treasury, 350; powers of Con- 
gress, 217. 

Field, David Dudley, 95, 372. 

First Confiscation Act: 194; enforced by Lincoln, 248. 

First Inaugural, quoted in part, 137. 

Forbes, J. M., 384. 

Ford's Theater, 420. 

Forest, influence on pioneers, 1. 

Fort Pickens, relief of, 164. 

Fort Pillow, massacre at, 339. 

Fort Sumter : 145 ; fired upon, 167. 

Fortress Monroe, base of attack upon Richmontl, 232. 

Fredericksburg, loss of life at, 288. 

Fremont: 192, 194, 202, 343; Mormon War, 157; nominated by Vin- 
dictives for President, 343; "bureau of abolition," 196; resigna- 
tion, 391. 

Fry, General, 356. 

Fugitive Slave Law: Id, 80, 99, 116; enforced in loyal States, 195; in 
first inaugural, 152; and Lincoln, 248. 

Georgia, secessionists in, 151. 

Gettysburg: Address, 329; victory at, 310. 

Gilmore, J. R., peace plan of, 359 et seq. 

Globe Tavern, Lincoln's first home after marriage, 44. 

Goethe, 271. 

Goodwin, Parke, 385. 

Grant, Ulysses S. : failure at Cold Harbor, 347; letter from Lincoln, 

310; Lincoln, 334. 
Gray, Asa, 343. 
Greeley, Horace: 95, 113, 273, 347, 385; as editorialist, 110; influence 

of, 110; Canadian venture, 358, 366 et seq.; proposes armistice, 

374; Rosecrans, 303; secession, 109. 
Green, Bowlin, and his wife, 27. 
Grimes, Senator, 189, 214; 
Gulf States: proposal of, 142; secede, 120. 

Haiber, Michael, ZZi. 
Hahn, Governor, 402. 

Halleck, General: 318, 362; arrives in Washington, 270; made General- 
in-Chief, 24a 



INDEX 467 

Hampton Roads Conference and peace terms, 399 et seq. 

Hanks, Joseph, 3. 

Hanks, Nancy: 3; education, 4; religious fervor, 6. 

Harper's Ferry episode, 95. 

Harrisburg, Lincoln's speech at, 133. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and Lincoln, 313. 

Hay, John: 16, 169, 349; and Lincoln, 324. 

Henderson, arrest of, 379. 

Herndon, William H. : 46, 68, 69, 119, 174, 261, characterized by Lin- 
coln, 30; description of Lincoln as orator, 86; separation from Lin- 
coln, 122. 

Hickman, Congressman, 219. 

Hitchcock, General: becomes confidential adviser for War Office, 233; 
and McClellan, 235. 

Hooker, General: and Burnside, 299; failure, 305; made head of the 
army of the Potomac, 302; resigns, 310. 

House of Representatives, The: and Emancipation Proclamation, 284; 
refuses seats to Representatives from Arkansas, 348. 

Hunter, General, and emancipation, 248. 

Inquisition and General Stone, 206. 

Jackson, Andrew: 179, 409; cimpaign, 239; at Cliancellorsville, 305. 

Jacobin Club, The, 197. 

Jacobins, The: 200 ct scq.; 212, 234; army of the Potomac, 229; char- 
acterized, 201; collapse, 281 et seq; emancipation, 247; Hooker, 
301 ; McClellan, 222 ; policy of, 247 ; Seward, 288. 

Jaquess, Colonel, plans for peace, 359 et scq. 

"Jim Lane," 168. 

Julian: 297, 303; second Confiscation Bill, 256. 

Kansas, abolition and slavery in, 83. 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill : 83 ; l^ouglas, 75 ; Lincoln, 76. 

Keene, Laura, 420. 

Kentucky, 3. 

Kossuth and Hungary's attempted independence, 106. 

Lamon, Ward Hill: 67, 417; and Lincoln, 301. 
Lawrence, sack of, 83. 

Lee, Robert E.: 240; at ChanccIIorsville, 305; retreat of, 277; sur- 
render of, 409. 



468 INDEX 

Libby prison, 407. 

Liberals, European, 253. 

Lincoln, Abraham : abolition, 69 ; accepts partnership with Stephen T. 
Logan, 46; accused of being an infitiel, 49; address to the voters 
of Sangamon Covmty, 135 ; adopts emancipation policy, 255 ; all- 
parties administration, 297; all-party program, 246; announces 
Emancipation Proclamation to Cabinet, 277; answer to Greeley, 
273 ; appoints military governors, 252 ; arguments against slavery, 
77-79; Arkansas situation, 348; army of the Potomac, 230; Ashley, 
320 ; as Congressman, 30 ; lawyer, 63 ; store-keeper with Denton 
Offut, 20; story-teller, 11, 17, 64; assassination, 421; assistant 
County Surveyor, 25; at front, 407; attempt on his life, 318; belief 
in immortality, 266; besieged by office seekers, 144; bids Herndon 
good-by, 122; bill to emancipate slaves in District of Columbia, 
52; birth, 5; Blair's resigination, 390; Border States, 255; burlesque 
of Lewis Cass, 54; buys copy of Blackstone, 24; call for an army, 
167; campaign dilemma, 99 et seq.; campaign for Senate, 80; 
capital and labor, 204; Chase boom, 337; Chase resignation, 293, 
349; Chicago clergymen, 276; and children, 324; clerk of elections 
at New Salem, 23 ; compared to Hamlet, 212 ; conflict with Con- 
gress, 186; Cooper Union speech, 185; Crittenden Compromise, 
113; defense of Bull Run, 174; defeated in campaign for Sepate, 
81; defense of Washington, 237; democracy, 134; Democrats, 298, 
described by Carpenter, 342 ; despatch to McClellan, quoted, 285 ; 
Diana story, 9; dictum of, 70; domestic life, 65; and Douglas, 72 
ct seq., 83, contrasted with, 72, debate with at Peoria, 78-80, 86; 
political rival of, 84; dream of assassination, 417; duel with Jack 
Armstrong, 22; early books, 13; early earnings, 13; early life in 
Kentucky, 5-10; early schooling, 9; and Edwin Stanton, 208; effect 
of Presidency on his religion, 263; elected to Congress, 51 ; election 
to Legislature in 1834, 25; Emancipation Bill, 256; engagement to 
Mary Todd, 37-39; as fable maker, 326; failure to understand 
South, 114; fame as orator, 82; a fatalist, 119; and Fessenden, 
350 ; fifth message to Congress, 396 ; first inaugural, 137 ; first 
mistake, 132; first proclamation emancipation stopped by Seward, 
270; first message to Congress, 178; first proposed conference 
with Grant, 405 ; first political speech quoted, 21 ; and Fort Pillow 
massacre, 339; and Frederick Douglas, 338; friendship with Rev- 
erend P. D. Gurley, 266; with Seward, 289; with Speed, 36-41; 
Fugitive Slave Law, 76, 80, 116; geniality, 22; Gettysburg Address, 
329; Government of Louisiana, 402 ct seq.\ and Grant, 334; great- 



INDEX 469 

est achievement, 395 ; and Greeley's Canadian venture, 306 ; growth 
in statecraft, 177; and Horatio Seymour, 29S; humor, 319 ct seq.'. 
Hunter's proclamation, 249; at Inaugural Ball in 1849, 55; inaugu- 
ration, 138; incident of fawn, 7; individualism vs. nationalism, 
182; influence of Jefferson, 317; of religion, ^; of Seward, 137, 
140 ct scq. ; intellectual awakening, 32 ; and Jacobin Club, 197 ; 
joins Washington society, 48; Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 76; last 
campaign, 392; last days, 415; last meeting with Cabinet, 418; law 
office with Herndon, 6Z; the lawyer, 46; leaves home, 19; letter 
to Boston committee, 92 ; letter of condolence to Mrs. Bixby, 
quoted, 321 ; letter to English working men, 294 ; letter to U. S. 
Grant, 311; letter to Hooker, 302; licensed to practise law, 35; 
loses senatorship to foil Douglas, 89; love for Ann Rutledge, 26; 
love for Artemus Wartl, 269; love for stepmother, 12; and Mc- 
Clellan, 224, his war tactics, 228; a manager of men, 29; married 
life, 44; marriage to Alary Todd, 43; meeting with Joshua Speed, 
35; with Seward, 134; misreads Southern mind, 103; mode of 
travel, 89; moves to Indiana, 9; to Springfield, 35; to Sangamon 
River, 19; 'mysticism, 8, 262 et scq.; nationalism, 177 et seq.; na- 
tional government and abolition, 34; negotiations with Confederate 
Government, 399; nominated for Congress, 49; nominated for 
President, 97; offered governorship of Oregon Territory, 56; offers 
compensated emancipation, 250; on circuit court, 61 et seq.; "On 
to Richmond" dilemma, 170 et seq. ; oration on death of Henry 
Clay, 69; oratory of '54, 82; described by Herndon, 86, 135; part- 
nership with Berry, 53 ; passion for reading, 13 ; Peoria speech, 
185 ; periods of melancholy, 91 ; personal eccentricities, 129-31 ; 
personal habits, 333; personal safety, 317 et seq.; physical descrip- 
tion of, 44; pliability, 68; plot to assassinate, 132; policy with 
South, 150; political intrigues, 118; as political strategist, 89; 
political suicide, 55; as postmaster of New Salem, 26; and prayer, 
266; preservation of Union, 116; presidential campaign, 93-97; 
"The President's Policy," 320; presidential offer to McClellan, 309; 
powers of President, 246, 307 et seq.; problem of reelection, 377; 
Proclamation of Amnesty and reconstruction, 331 ; proposed duel 
with James Shields, 43; recommends Chase for Chief Justice, 397; 
Reconstruction Bill, 251 ; refusal of Lee's first proposal, 405 ; re- 
fuses to call negro troops, 193; reinstatement of Seceded States, 
412 ; removal of Illinois capital to Springfield, 31 ; renominated, 
344; religion, 261 et seq.; reply to "Thoughts," 159; on reparation, 
279; rivalry with Douglas, 72; Second Confiscation Bill, 256; sec- 



470 INDEX 

ond inaugural, 405; second message to Congress, 201-203; quoted, 
326 ct seq.; secret of his success, 313-315; serenity, 242; seven 
terms for peace, 361 ; Seward's resignation from Cabinet, 290 
et seq.; slavery, 19; early efforts against, 32; a social failure in 
Washington, 129; speech accepting Republican nomination to Sen- 
ate, 85 ; speech at Cooper's Union, 82, 95 ; speech at Harrisburg, 
133 ; speech after Lee's surrender, 410 ef seq. ; speech at Sanitary 
Fair, 346; leaves Springfield for Washington, speech, 122; speech 
on reelection, 394; speech at Republican Convention at Springfield, 
83; Stanton, 355 et seq.; as statesman, 127 et seq.; a stoic, 8; a 
story-teller in Congress, 56 ; supported by Sumner, 198 ; tariff, his 
•mistakes, 101; theology, 264; three proposals to South, 116; trip 
to New Orleans, 14; Vallantligham episode, 306 et seq.; "war 
powers," 213; Washington in 1848, 54, 128; Whig, 30; writ of 
'habeas corpus, 280; writings of, 136; youth of, 11-18. 

Lincoln, Mordecai, 4. 

Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, death and burial of, 12. 

Lincoln, Robert, 420. 

Lincoln, Sarah Bush, 12. 

Lincoln, Tad, 324. 

Lincoln, Thomas : ancestry and birth, 4 ; marries Nancy Hanks, 5 ; 
second marriage, 12. 

Lincoln, Willie, death of, 227. 

Little Men, See Democrats. 

Logan, Stephen T., and partnership with Lincoln, 45, 62. 

London Times, 173. 

Louisiana, government of, 401 ct seq., 411 et seq. 

Lowell, James Russell: and Lincoln, 313; "The President's Policy," 330. 

McCIellan, George Brinton : 130, 197; characterized, 221; defense of 
Washington, 238 ; in command of Washington forces, 275 ; con- 
sidered for Democratic candidate, 385 ; demoted, 231 ; and Doug- 
las, 88; failure, 242; as a general, 225; commands Union Army, 
175; and Hitchcock, 235; illness of, 206; and Jacobins, 222, 228, 
278 ; and Lincoln, 224 ; and presidential offer, 309 ; promenade to 
Manassas, 231 ; withdraws from Peninsula, 271. 

McDowell, General Irvi^in : 172; failure, 175. 

Manassas: 172; excavation of, 231. 

Mason, seizure, 198. 

Matteson (Douglas candidate), 81. 

"■Meditation on the Divine Will," Lincoln's, 226. 



INDEX 471 

Mexican War, 52. 

Military governors appointed, 252. 

Missouri Compromise, 79, 80, 112. 

Monroe Doctrine, 158. 

Montgomery, strategic position of, 166. 

Mormon War, 157. 

Morton, Oliver P., Z7Z. 

Motley and Lincoln, 314. 

Napoleon III: 96; and ^lexico, 158, Zii. 

Nat Turner Rebellion, 103. 

Nature, influence of on pioneers, 1. 

Negro suffrage, 402. 

New Salem, 111., 20. 

New York, a "free city," 168. 

New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, 266. 

New York Convention, 387. 

New York Times: 171, 370; and Lincoln's reelection, 378. 

New York Tribune, 171, 273, 370. 

Nicolay, John, 16, 324. 

North American Review, 330. 

North Carolina and secession, 151, 167. 

"Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud," 91. 

Ohio demands reelection of Lincoln, 335. 

"Old Man, The," 324. 

Ordinance of Secession, 163. 

Orsino, 96. 

Owens, Alary, Lincoln's courtship of, 37. 

Paine, 47. 

Peck, Ebenezer, 390. 

Pendleton and presidential powers, 310. 

Peoria, Lincoln's speech at, 185. 

"Perpetuation of Our Free Institutions," Lincoln's speech, 48. 

Personal Liberty Laws, 116. 

Phillips, Wendell, 199, 213, 248, 343. 

Pickens expedition, 165. 

Pilgrim's Progress, 13. 

Pioneers, 1 et seq. 

Political conditions in 1860, 98 ct seq. 



472 INDEX 

Political platforms of 1860, 104. 

Pomeroy, Senator, 336. 

Poore, Ben Parley, 52. 

Pope, John: commands army of Virginia, 271 et seq.; downfall, 274. 

••Prayer of 20,000,000, The," 273. 

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, 331. 

Rationalism, 47. 

Raymond, Henry VV. : and General Hooker, 209, 373 ; peace proposals, 

375 et seq. 
Reconstruction Bill, 351. 
Republican Club of New York, 148. 
Republican Convention of 1860, 96-97, 344. 
Republican Party, foundation of, 83. 
Republicans and tariff of 1857, 100. 
Rhett, Robert Barnwell, and secession, 106-108, 110. 
Richmond, fall of, 407. 
Riddle, Congressman, 188. 
Robespierre, 179. 
Robinson Criisoe, 7, 13. 
Rosecrans, 303. 
Rutledge, Ann, engagement to Lincoln and death, 26. 

S. S. Pou^iatan and Sumter expedition, 165. 

San Domingo rebellion, 158. 

Schurz, Carl, 252. 

Scott, General: 121, 138, 154, 168, 169, 172, 175: and Sumter, 148. 

Second Confiscation Bill, 256. 

Senate: and Emancipation Proclamation, 284; Louisiana government, 
403. 

Senate Judiciary Committee, 204. 

Seventh New York regiment comes to Washington, 170. 

Seward: 94, 96, 105, 106, 109, 112, 132, 168, 174, 255; characterized, 141; 
evacuation of Sumter, 154 ct seq.; first Emancipation Proclamation, 
270; friendship with Lincoln, 289; influence on Lincoln, 137, 140 
et seq.; and Jacobins, 288; meets Lincoln, 134; and Mexico, 158; 
modifies Lincoln's three proposals, 116; oil on waters of 1S60, 111; 
policy about Sumter, 146, 148 ; preservation of Union, 148 ; pro- 
posed blockade of Southern Coast, 158 ; resigns from Cabinet, 289 
et seq. ; as Secretary of State, 140 et seq. ; "Thoughts for the 
President's Consideration," 156. 



INDEX 473 

Seymour, Horatio, 298, 303, 310. 

Shakespeare : 65 ; influence on Lincoln. 25. 

Sherman, John: 150, 246, 297; and Atlanta, 386. 

Sherman, W. T., 150. 

Shields, James, 43. 

Slavery: financed by the East, 74; partisans in Illinois, 32. 

Slidel, capture of, 198. 

Smith, Garret, 248. 

Soldiers' Home, Lincoln's country place, 364. 

South : attitude toward abolition, 100 ; toward slavery, 100 ; colored 
troops, 338; nationalism, 153; solidarity shaken, 150; and tariff, 
101. 

South Carolina; and evacuation of Sumter, 147; secession of, 108. 

Southern Confederacy, plans for, 115. 

Spain and San Domingo, 158. 

Speed, Joshua R, meeting with Lincoln, 35. 

Springfield, Illinois, capital moved to, 31. 

Stanton, Edward M. : 207 ef scq., 269 ; appeal for militia, 240 ; assumes 
uties of Commanding General, 232; closes recruiting offices, 254; 
and General Stone, 208; and Lincoln, 355 ct scq. 

Steele, General, 348. 

Stephens, Alexander H., 399. 

Stevens, Thaddeus : 212; and powers of Congress, 215. 

Stone, General: and Ball's Bluff Episode, 206; imprisoned, 208. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, description of Douglas's oratory, 88. 

Sumner: 94, 131, 133; and Louisiana government, 404; political am- 
bitions, 381; powers of Congress, 215; Seceded States, 411; in the 
Senate, 83 ; support of Lincoln, 198. 

Swett, 62. 

Taney, Chief Justice: 138; death of, 376. 

Tariff in 1857, 100. 

Tennessee, secession of, 167. 

Terms of Peace, 399. 

Thirteenth Amendment, 408 ct seq. 

Tliirty-seventh Congress, 256. 

Tilton, 385. 

Todd, Mary: characterized, 45; education, 38; and Lincoln, 37, 38. 

Toombs, Robert, 167. 

Trumbull, Lyman: 81, 204; and Bull Run picnic, 189; and Louisiana 

government, 403; and Lincoln, 401; and powers of Congress, 214; 

and Second Confiscation Bill, 256. 



474 INDEX 

Union Convention proposed, Z12. 
Union League of Philadelphia, 389. 

Vallandigham episode, The, 306, 356 et seq. 

Vandalia, Illinois, capital removed, 31. 

Vicksburg, surrender of, 310. 

Vindictives, The: 196; actions on summer of 1864, 2>72; convention of 
Cleveland, 343; Fessenden appointment to Secretary of Treasury, 
351 ; and Louisiana government, 403 et seq. ; nominate Fremont 
for President, 343; Proclamation of Amnesty, 331. See Jacobins. 

Vinton, Reverend Francis, and Lincoln, 263. 

Virginia: 3; pre-war division of, 147; secession, 151, 167; and state 
rights, 183. 

Virginia Compromise, 151 et seq., 156, 157, 162. 

Virginia Convention, 147. 

Virginia Unionists, 163. 

Volney, 47. 

Von Clausewitz, 286. 

Wade, Benjamin: 204, 214; and Bull Run picnic, 189; conduct of War 
Committee, 208; joins Lincoln, 388; and Louisiana government, 
403; and Mormon War, 157; and Second Confiscation Bill, 257. 

Wade-Davis Manifesto, 369 et seq. 

Wadsworth, General, Commander for Washington, 236. 

Wakarusa River, war of, 83. 

Washburne, 2)72i. 

Washington: during early war days, 168; in the 'forties, 56; invaded, 
361 ; society, 48. 

W^ebster, Daniel, and sovereignty, 184. 

Weed, Thurlow, 112 et seq., 159, 298. 

Welles, Gideon: 255, 292; characterized, 160 et seq.; and Pope's failure, 
275. 

Whigs and abolition, 34, 99. 

Whitman, Walt, and Lincoln, 314. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf, on secession, 143. 

Wilkes, Captain, 198. 

Wilmot Proviso, 52. 

Wilson, Henry, 188, 390. 



INDEX 



329 



Sacramento, the, 180 

St. Thomas school, 8 

Sanders, George A., 248 

Santa Ana, 62 

Schade, Louis, 224 

Schofleld, General, 268 

School life, 8 /. 

SchuTz, Carl, 84, 311 

Scott, Winfleld, 43, 59, 182 

Sea-power and the cruisers, 171 /. 

Secession, 17, 49, 108/., 268, 283 

Soddon, James A., 223 

Sedgwick, John, 90 

Semmes, Raphael, 14.'>, 172 f. 

Seward. WilUam H., 96, 160, 232, 

295 
Sharpsburg, 202 
Shea, George, 263 
Sherman, W. T., 228/., 241/. 
Shiloh, 199 
Slave^J^ 35/., 46/., 51, 71, 73, 75, 

77/., 91, 114/. 
SlideU, John, 162 /., 169, 180, 195 /.. 

279 
Smith, E. Kirby, 90, 244, 248 
Smith, Gerrit, 268, 273 
Smith, Goldwin, 68 
Smith, William, 273 
Southampton insurrection, 116 
Sparrow, Ed., 273 
Spottsylvania Court House, 226 
"Squatter sovereignty," 91 
Stanley, David S., 90 
Stanton, E. M., 133, 254 
Star of the West, The, 180 /. 
State-rights, 78, 113/. 
State sovereignty, 27, 208 
Stephens, Alexander, 127 /., 144, 

216, 230, 234, 237, 257, 298/. 
Stevens. Thaddeus, 220, 263 
Stoneman, George, 90 
Stonewall, the, 180 /. 
Stuart, A. H. H., 1.34 
Stuart, J. E. B., 90, 97. 115 
Sumner. Edwin V.. 90 

Tallahassee, the, 29, 177 
Tariff, 54, 67 /., 187 
Tax, on cotton, 158; in kind, 189 
Taylor, John Gibson, 31 
Taylor, Richard, 29 
Taylor, Sarah Knox, 29 /. 
Taylor, Zachary. 25, 29/.. 55. 58. 
60. 74, 78 



Tennoy, Judge, 284 

Territories, 67, 71 

Texas, 46, 52, 69 /. 

Thayer, Sylvanus, 13 

Thomas, George H., 90 

Thomijson, Jacob, 248 

Toombs, Robert, 107, 116/.. 143 

Transylvania University, 10, 12 /. 

Trenholm, Secretary, 236, 298 

"Trent affair," 102/. 

Trescott, WilUam H., 118 

Tribune. N. Y., 219 

Tucker, Beverley, 248 

Tucker, J. R., 267 

Tyler, John, 130 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 96 
Underwood, John C, 264. 273 
Union party, 78 /. 

Van Dom, Earl, 96 
Vicksburg, 170, 205, 211 
Virginia, 139 
Virginia, the, 200 /. 
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, 
83 

Walker, L. P.. 143/. 
Walker, Robert J., 44, 98 
WalthaU, W. T., 284 
Webster, Daniel, 67 
Weed, Thurlow, 117 
WeUs, H. H. 274 
"Welsh Neck," 5 
"Welsh Tract Meeting," 2, 51 
West Point, 12/., 17, 19/., 90 
Wheeler, Joseph, 257 
Whig party, 83 
Wlilting, W. H. C. 272 
Whitney rifle, 69 
Whitney's cotton-gin, 48, 68 
Wildem&ss, 228 
Wilkin.son, John, 177 
Williams, David, 5 
Williams, Isaac, 5 
Wilmot Proviso, 74 /. 
Wilson, Henry, 219/. 
Wirz, Captain, 220, 223 
Wise. Henry A., 273 
Wood, J. Taylor. 29. 77 

Yancey. WilUam L.. 92, 102/., 
140. 162 



